Throughout America’s history, its citizens held an interest in the development of the Middle East and particularly in the re-establishment of a Jewish presence in the Middle East. Analyze support for a Jewish presence in the Middle East among Antebellum Americans. What ideas gave rise to this support? What effect, if any, did this support have on future U.S. foreign policy?

THE LASTING POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF ANTEBELLUM JEWISH RESTORATIONISM

Matt White

January 25, 2016

Liberty University PPOG 641 – U.S. Middle East Foreign Policy

The support for a Jewish return to Palestine among antebellum Americans, rooted in a prophetic hastening of the Second Coming, was an influential movement that encompassed the mainstream Christian worldview in the United States. Many Americans paralleled the restoration of Israel with America’s founding as the City on a Hill, and to many Americans, the restorationist mindset reflected Manifest Destiny. Religious support for the restoration of a Jewish Israel, based on eschatological prophecy, influenced modern American-Israeli foreign policy, from Wilson and the Balfour Declaration, to Truman and the official recognition of the State of Israel, to contemporary unquestioned evangelical support for the State of Israel, with little regard for the native Arab population.

Throughout much of Christian history, traditional Church doctrine and attitudes were that by rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, the Jewish people forfeited claims to God’s promises. The fact that the Jews were expelled from the Promised Land and forced to wander was taken as a sign of the verity of Christ’s claims. However, a movement developed in the United States aimed at returning the Jews to their ancestral home in Palestine. Premillennial Jewish restorationism is the theory that one precondition for the Second Coming of Christ is the resettlement of Palestine by Jews, and the Jews’ subsequent conversion to Christianity. Antebellum American Christian Zionists saw themselves as a catalyst to hasten the Jewish restoration, reverse the Exodus, and fulfill the conditions for the Second Coming. Most thought that Christ’s return was imminent, interpreting global events as signs of the times, and had a sense of urgency to their mission. Though only the Lord knows the day and the hour, few presumably would have predicted that their beliefs would continue to influence American Middle Eastern foreign policy into the 21^st century.

In antebellum American foreign affairs, economic and religious interests converged in the initial partnership of restorationism and public policy. American missionaries increasingly descended upon Palestine, following the lead of the first to the region, Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons. The American diplomatic presence in the Ottoman Empire fostered international trade and economic strength. As a concurrent byproduct, a strong diplomatic presence enabled the missionaries to travel and preach throughout Palestine under the safe protection of expanding U.S. consulates and the Mediterranean fleet.

Many Zionists drew parallels between Jewish restorationism and America’s founding. The founding pilgrims, like the Jews, were a religiously persecuted people in need of a new settlement. Early American foreign policy was centered on the notion of being the “City on a Hill,” a beacon of both democracy and Christianity. Oren related the mindset of antebellum Christian restorationists to Manifest Destiny. Looking eastward, Americans were destined to help return the Jews to Palestine, convert them to Christianity, and bring about the Second Coming. Making their way westward, Americans were destined to conquer the continent, convert and hence civilize the native population on the way. However, while the missionaries’ motives were entirely spiritual, the westward-expanding pioneers primarily sought land, commerce, and independence. Missionaries sought to return the Jews to their native homeland. This motive contrasted significantly with that of the pioneers, with American Indian policy forcing the natives further west, away from their native homelands.

The beliefs of the antebellum restorationists spawned a broad American support for a Jewish return to Palestine, and influenced future U.S. foreign policy into the 21^st century. Woodrow Wilson was born in the antebellum south in 1856. His father was an evangelical Presbyterian minister, and his first wife was a minister’s daughter. The Restoration of Israel was one aspect of Wilson’s religious beliefs, presumably influenced by his upbringing under his father’s teachings. In 1917, Wilson pronounced his formal support of the Balfour Declaration, reflecting these beliefs. Support for a Jewish home in Palestine legislatively became official U.S. foreign policy by congressional act in 1922.

Devout Baptist Harry Truman believed that the Bible could provide guidance for all areas of life, including government. Truman, through his personal Biblical studies, was influenced by Psalm 137 and God’s longing for the Jewish people to return to Palestine. As a senator, Truman supported pro-Zionist resolutions as fulfilment of Biblical prophecy, and condemned the British White Paper of 1939 that restricted Jewish immigration. Truman’s restorationist beliefs culminated in Truman being the first head of state to officially recognize the State of Israel in 1948.

From the Arab point of view, Jewish restorationism and its influence on U.S. foreign policy continues to have a profoundly negative impact on their lives. Many antebellum American missionaries and travelers viewed the native Arabs with disdain and prejudice. Arabs were seen as slovenly, backwards, and ignorant. Many travelers held Muslim civilization in ethnocentric contempt, and missionaries thought that all of the flaws of the Middle East could be solved by embracing Christianity and Western culture. Many early restorationists assumed that Palestine was an unpopulated land that would easily accommodate the Aliyah. In supporting a massive immigration of Jews, little regard was given to the local Arab population.

Modern evangelicals are an important voting bloc, and prominent leaders can influence U.S. foreign policy with their strong lobby. Many politically influential evangelical leaders are staunchly pro-Israel, beyond supporting Israel’s right to exist as a state, supporting West Bank settlements, turning a blind eye to the million-man Palestinian refugee generation expelled after the 1967 Six Day War, and accepting strict modern travel restrictions for the Arabs confined to the West Bank and Gaza. Unquestioned evangelical support for policies of the State of Israel, even at the expense of the civil rights of Palestinians living in the occupied territories, would not occur without their restorationist religious worldview. No political entity, not Israel nor the United States, is above scrutiny.

References

Carroll, James. 2012. Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited our Modern World. New York: Mariner Books.

Klinger, Jerry. 2010. “Judge Brandies, President Wilson and Reverend William E. Blackstone changed Jewish History.” The Jewish Magazine, August. Accessed January 24, 2016. http://jewishmag.com/146mag/brandeis_blackstone/brandeis_blackstone.htm

Obenzinger, Hilton. 2003. “Holy Land Narrative and American Covenant: Levi Parsons, Pliny Fisk and the Palestine Mission.” Religion & Literature 35, no. 2/3 (Summer – Autumn): 241-267. Accessed January 24, 2016, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40059923.

Oren, Michael B. 2008. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present. New York: Norton. (Orig. pub. 2007).

Radosh, Allis, and Ronald Radosh. 2009. A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel. New York: Harper Collins.

Sizer, Stephen. 2004. Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon? Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press.

Compare early American interests in the Middle East with contemporary American interests in the Middle East. What themes have remained constant? What new interests have arisen? How, if at all, has a secularization of America and/or a move away from the Judeo-Christian worldview affected the perception of American interests in the Middle East?

AMERICAN INTERESTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Matt White

February 8, 2016

Liberty University PPOG 641 – U.S. Middle East Foreign Policy

Every nation acts primarily in its own national interests, and the United States is not unique in this regard. Throughout the lifespan of the nation, American foreign policy, in the Middle East and elsewhere, has consistently been based on economic interests and national security. Ideology has typically been a secondary motivation. American-interests in the region may have remained consistent, but only since WWII has the United States been significantly active in pursuing these interests in the Middle East. The constant themes throughout the nation’s history of foreign policy with the Middle East are economic interests through trade and later oil, American national security, specifically during the Cold War by countering the Soviet Union, and being willing to support autocrats and dictators in the region in support of these American interests.

To those who claim that the United States has shifted away from the Judeo-Christian worldview, compared with the righteous nation of the 19^th century, the perception of American interests might have evolved from missionary to military with the perceived secularization of America. As Oren highlighted, early American fascination with the Middle East, through the end of the 19^th century, was significantly based on faith and fantasy. American missionaries flooded the region, fascinated with the significance of the Holy Land. The restorationist movement flourished in the United States. Travelers to the region contributed literature and travelogues that fueled American fantasy, despite the reality they saw. American mercenaries fought in the Egyptian army as many Americans were determined to spread both Christianity and Western democracy. However, the actions of individual Americans, based on ideology, should not be confused with American foreign policy. The interests of Americans are not always equivalent to American-interests. Actual American-interest, reflected in government policies and actions, has remained consistent.

Prior to WWII, the United States was not a global power on par with Britain and France, and official American governmental interaction in the Middle East was comparatively limited. Because the American government was relatively inactive in the region, the dominant American presence were missionaries, educators, and those determined to spread Christianity and Western Civilization. The imbalance creates the mixed perception that American-interest in the Middle East was purely altruistic at the time. However, many Americans claiming to spread the gospel of democracy throughout the Middle East had no issues with British and French colonialism in the region. When it came to the Christian Ottoman provinces of Greece, Hungary and Armenia however, Americans were outspoken in support of their right to independence from the Muslim empire.

America’s first official dealings in the Middle East were to protect economic interests. The Barbary Wars were fought to protect American trade in the Mediterranean. Previously, American policy was to pay tribute to the Barbary pirates and the tyrannical leaders in the region, in order to protect American merchants. The cost of these bribes was weighed against the financial costs of building a naval fleet. Once the pirates were defeated militarily, the United States engaged in diplomatic relations with Middle Eastern leaders who were generally seen as despots with a backwards religion. Economics trumped ideology. In this regard, America’s early engagements in the Middle East started a legacy of cooperating with Middle Eastern dictators, ignoring human rights in the name of American national interest.

During the Civil War, Egypt became a strategic partner to the Union by supplanting the Southern cotton market in Europe, weakening the Confederate economy. For the sake of national interest, the United States was willing to overlook the Egyptian contingent in Maximilian’s imperial forces in Mexico, violating the Monroe Doctrine.

Once the United States became a global superpower, the influence that the United States held in the Middle Eastern geopolitical arena increased dramatically. Although basic American interests of economy and security did not change, they were greatly magnified alongside American status. Throughout the Cold War, American national security interests were primarily focused on the Soviet Union, and the Middle East became a pawn in Cold War diplomacy. The United States actively courted Middle Eastern leaders, such as Nasser of Egypt, by offering generous arms deals to counter arms packages offered by the Soviets.

The discovery of oil in the Arabian Peninsula focused American economic interests into American oil interests. Ibn Saud chose to grant oil concessions to Americans, opposed to British companies. In part, this was because the British had global imperialist designs, unlike the Americans, who had no political ambition in the region at the time. However, following WWII, American political ambition in the region increased dramatically, largely steered by Saudi oil access. American dependence on Saudi oil translates to another constant throughout the history of American foreign policy, the willingness to cooperate with Middle Eastern dictators in the name of American interests. Starting with bin ‘Abdallah of Morocco, the United States held diplomatic relations and alliances with the Ottoman sultans, Barbary deys and beys, to Ibn Saud and his sons, the Iranian Shah, a half-century in Egypt of Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak, and at one time, Saddam Hussein. American interests often trumped ideology in determining with whom American administrations would be willing to work.

American Middle Eastern foreign policy throughout the latter half of the 20^th century was marked by concern of how our relationship with Israel would affect our standings with the Arab states. When considering the prospect of future Jewish statehood, Franklin Roosevelt heavily weighed maintaining access to Saudi oil and the need to maintain balanced, friendly Arab relations. Some in Truman’s cabinet had similar fears of sparking a Saudi oil embargo when Truman recognized Israel. However, the Saudi economic self-interest was in oil sales to the United States, which made up 90% of Saudi government revenue at the time. There was a general failure to realize that, like any other nation, the Arab states were most interested in their own security and economic self-interest. Arab allies depended on the United States to buy their oil and to sell weapons to them in return, regardless of American relations with Israel. American national interests drove foreign policy with Middle Eastern nations, and the national interests of Middle Eastern nations drove their reciprocal relationship with the United States.

The American perspective of the Middle East has been consistently clouded with ignorance. Early Americans held a fantasy image of “Mussulmen” and “Orientals” stemmed from One Thousand One Arabian Nights with little real knowledge of Muslim people or Islam. Ignorance has been grounded in an assumption of Muslim homogeneity. To this day, few Americans can describe the fundamental religious differences between Sunni and Shi’a Islam, let alone the ideological divergences between Hanafi Sunnism of Turkey and Wahhabi Sunnism in Saudi Arabia. Modern presidents have failed to understand the tribalistic inter-Arab rivalries, the Saudis vs. the Hashemites, or Islamists vs. secular nationalists. Contemporary political dialogue, “Muslims are…” or “Islam is…” simply perpetuates the notion of homogeneity, ignorance of the politically and religiously diverse reality in the Middle East, and a lack of understanding fundamental to the dynamics of the region.

References

Gold, Dore. 2003. Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc.

Herring, George C. 2008. From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776. New York: Oxford University Press.

Oren, Michael B. 2008. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present. New York: Norton. (Orig. pub. 2007).

Radosh, Allis, and Ronald Radosh. 2009. A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel. New York: Harper Collins.

Ross, Dennis. 2015. Doomed to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Since the rebirth of Israel in 1948, the United States and Israel have shared common values, common interests, and a strategic relationship. Identify common interests between the United States and Israel, and identify at least 2 U.S. actions or foreign policies that, for better or worse, impacted the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. Analyze the impact of those U.S. actions or policies on the United States’ strategic, security, economic, and/or cultural interests related to the Middle East.

THE VITALITY AND VULNERABILITITES OF THE AMERICAN-ISRAELI RELATIONSHIP

Matt White

March 1, 2016

Liberty University PPOG 641 – U.S. Middle East Foreign Policy

The United States and Israel have generally shared certain common interests and values, yet have often clashed on the meaning and implementation of those values. The United States has used, or in some views occasionally misused, its special relationship and influence over Israel in pursuit of American interests throughout the Middle East, interests that include Arab-Israeli peace. Despite the occasional surface tensions, the United States and Israel share a history of success when cooperating on regional security goals. Above any fray, the United States has always valued Israeli national security and statehood, despite occasionally contradictory views on how to maintain it.

American interests throughout the broader Middle East have generally been oil, Soviet containment during the Cold War, and antiterrorism. Often, these American interests have impacted Israel in some way. As mentioned in previous assignments, appeasing Saudi leaders in secure of oil has at times resulted in the United States pressuring Israel for territorial concessions or in the withholding of weapons shipments. The United States often used weapons sales to draw Middle Eastern leaders away from the Soviet sphere of influence, specifically to Egypt and pre-Revolutionary Iran. The United States enforced an arms embargo against Israel under Truman and Eisenhower. However, subsequent presidents, Kennedy and Johnson, attempted to maintain the regional balance of power by lifting the embargo and arming Israel to match. In various degrees, the United States and Israel have cooperated with intelligence operations. The Stuxnet virus that crippled Iranian nuclear reactors, jointly created by the United States and Israel, is one recent example.

One specific instance that merged American Cold War containment interests with the Israeli fight against the terrorist threat posed by the Palestinian Liberation Organization was the Black September crisis in 1970. The PLO had established their own mini-state within Jordan, and had regularly attacked Israel from across the border. After fighting between the PLO and Jordanian government escalated towards civil war, Soviet-ally Syria intervened and sent tanks into Jordan in defense of the PLO. At Nixon and Kissinger’s request, although Jordan was an Israeli adversary, Yitzhak Rabin was willing to use Israeli troops to protect Jordan, as a Cold War American ally yet Israeli adversary, against the PLO and Syria, who were armed by the Soviet Union, and who were a threat to both American interests and Israeli security.

A striking example of American-Israeli cooperation for common post-Cold War Middle Eastern security objectives occurred during the Gulf War. Bush was able to build an international coalition against Iraq following the invasion of Kuwait. The participation or at least approval of Arab states, primarily Saudi Arabia, was vital for success. However, many Arab states would only cooperate if Israel was left out of the coalition. Though Hussein launched a barrage of Scud missiles against civilian populations in Israel, inflicting casualties and fear in order to provoke Israel into war, the United States urged Israeli restraint so as to not break the coalition. Israel acquiesced, and in turn, the American military deployed Patriot missiles within Israel for Israeli defense.

Throughout numerous rounds of American-facilitated peace negotiations, the United States has pressured Israel to make territorial concessions in exchange for peace agreements. In one particular instance of many, the Rogers Plan of 1969 proposed that Israel return all of the Egyptian lands captured during the Six Day War, including the entire Sinai. The deal was rejected by both Egypt and Israel, and Egyptian border raids continued. Return of the Sinai and Israeli-Egyptian peace was not reached until 1979, through Sadat and Begin. During the Camp David peace process, Carter was initially approving of Sadat’s demand for full Israeli withdrawal of the West Bank to the pre-1967 borders, but accepted Begin’s compromise for taking steps towards West Bank autonomy. Per Carter’s interpretation but not Begin’s, this meant the cessation of building further West Bank settlements. The United States has continued to condemn West Bank settlement building as detrimental towards Israeli-Palestinian peace, Palestinian sovereignty, and Israeli security.

Israeli national security has remained a steadfast concern of the United States, defense against both threats from neighboring states, and from Palestinian hostilities. This holds true despite policies that may seem otherwise, occasionally tense relationships between leaders, and Americans placing greater pressure on Israel for concessions during peace negotiations. Though the United States and Israel have often differed on how Israel can best protect its sovereignty, Israeli national security remains the shared fundamental motivation behind competing means toward the same end. Israel has often argued that control of the territories is vital to Israeli national security. Israel is a small enough state as it is, with hostile neighbors, especially so prior to the treaties with Egypt and Jordan. Without the West Bank, Israel was only a few miles wide at its narrowest point. The Golan Heights, and the Sinai when it was under Israeli control, served as buffers against Egypt and Syria. Yet, while Israel sees the territories as vital security interests, the United States has often seen them as security liabilities. From the American viewpoint, Israeli West Bank settlements, denial of Palestinian civil rights, and the basic Israeli presence all incite Palestinian terrorist acts that threaten Israeli security.

Though many former presidents have had tense relations with former Israeli leaders, many Americans today see Obama as anti-Israel because of his difficult relationship with Netanyahu, and of the concessions he has been urging on Israel. Yet, Obama remains personally committed to Israeli security, despite clashing personalities, viewpoints, and methods to ensure security. When Israel came under missile attack from Gaza in 2012 and 2014, Obama funneled money into Israel’s Iron Dome defense shield without hesitation. Netanyahu has been vocal that the Iranian nuclear deal will mark the end of Israel’s existence. Yet, Obama has attempted to assure Netanyahu that if successful, a nuclear-free Iran will be of much greater benefit to Israeli security than no deal.

The United States and Israel share a common historical narrative, both good and bad, and though many parallels can be drawn, issues historically faced in the United States and Israel are unique with their own complexities. Both are nations of immigrants, whose majority populations sought refuge in the name of religious freedom, only to intrude upon native populations. The United States forced Native Americans onto reservations, only to force them further west to make way for American settlements. Parallels can be drawn with Palestinian territorial confinement and West Bank settlements. Both nations are former British colonies that inherited a legacy of British common law. The United States and Israel share a democratic history, and shared beliefs in full civil liberties. However, the two nations also share a history of proclaiming these values, while simultaneously suppressing specific segments of the population. Full suffrage, absent throughout the majority of American history, is granted to all Israeli citizens, male, female, Arab, and Jew. However, through the Law of Return, Jewish citizenship is fast tracked, while everyone else faces bureaucratic hurdles. Not considering the population under the Palestinian Authority or Gaza, all citizens of the State of Israel maintain full civil rights and religious freedom. Yet, Israel has been accused of measures to suppress Arab representation in the Knesset through such measures as recently increasing the minimum threshold for party list representation. Both the United States and Israel have argued for the necessity of such policies in order to maintain its national character. Perhaps Americans are at times critical of Israel because we see a reflection of ourselves, and our own past flaws.

References

Gelpe, Marcia. 2013. The Israeli Legal System. Durham: Carolina Academic Press.

Herring, George C. 2008. From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776. New York: Oxford University Press.

Law of Return 5710-1950 (July 5, 1950). Accessed March 1, 2016, from Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/mfa-archive/1950-1959/pages/law%20of%20return%205710-1950.aspx.

Nakashima, Ellen, and Joby Warrick. 2012. “Stuxnet was work of U.S. and Israeli experts, officials say.” Washington Post. June 2. Accessed February 29, 2016.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/stuxnet-was-work-of-us-and-israeli-experts-officials-say/2012/06/01/gJQAlnEy6U_story.html

Newman, David. 2015. “Israel’s elections and the Joint Arab List.” Jerusalem Post. Updated February 24. February 25, 2016. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/docview/1659928975?pq-origsite=summon.

Oren, Michael B. 2008. Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present. New York: Norton. (Orig. pub. 2007).

Ross, Dennis. 2015. Doomed to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Zilber, Neri. 2014. “Israel’s Governance Law: Raising the Electoral Threshold.” The Washington Institute. March 10. Accessed February 25, 2016. http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/israels-governance-law-raising-the-electoral-threshold.