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Christian Zionism as a Representation of American Manifest Destiny

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 14; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10669920500135538

1473-9666

Lawrence Davidson,

American Constitutional Law and Politics

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 'The great aim of culture [is] the aim of setting ourselves to ascertain what perfection is and to make it prevail.' The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955), p. 19. 2 Edward Said (1978 Said E 1978 Orientalism New York Vintage Books [Google Scholar]) Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books), pp. 1–2. 3 Lawrence Davidson (2001 Davidson L 2001 America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood Gainesville, FL University Press of Florida [Google Scholar]) America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida), p. 22. These are the words Balfour used to characterize the post-World War I mandate regime. Rudyard Kipling would call it the taking up of the 'white man's burden.' 4 See Davidson, America's Palestine, chap. 1. 5 See Newsweek, 1 November 2000. 6 See Fuad Sha'ban (1991 Sha'ban F 1991 Islam and Arabs in Early American Thought Durham, NC Acorn Press [Google Scholar]) Islam and Arabs in Early American Thought (Durham, NC: Acorn Press), p. 91. 7 Clifton Phillips (1969 Phillips C 1969 Protestant America and the Pagan World Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press [Google Scholar]) Protestant America and the Pagan World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), p. 243. 8 ⟨http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/winthrop.htm⟩. 9 John L. O'Sullivan (1839 O'Sullivan, JL. 1839. The great nation of futurity. The United States Democratic Review, 6(23): 426–430. [Google Scholar]) 'The great nation of futurity,' The United States Democratic Review, 6(23), pp. 426–430. 10 See the addresses posted by the Avalon Project of Yale University Law School at ⟨http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/inaug/inaug.htm⟩. 11 Albert Weinberg (1963 Weinberg A 1963 Manifest Destiny Chicago Quadrangle Books [Google Scholar]) Manifest Destiny (Chicago: Quadrangle Books). 12 Cited in Howard Zinn (1980 Zinn H 1980 A People's History of the United States New York Harper & Row [Google Scholar]) A People's History of the United States (New York: Harper & Row), pp. 305–306. 13 See Benedict Anderson (1991 Anderson B 1991 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism London Verso [Google Scholar]) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso). 14 George W. Bush, Inaugural Address, 20 January 2001. 15 'Dispensationalism' is the regulation or ordering of events by God. History is divided into periods that witness certain divinely set events. A 'pre-millennial' reading of biblical prophecy dictates that certain events must occur prior to the Second Coming of Christ. Paul S. Boyer defines it as 'a series of last-day signs' signaling the end of the world. One of these signs is the return of the Jews to the 'promised land' and the recreation of an exclusively Jewish state of Israel (see Boyer's piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 14 February 2003, p. B10). The pre-millennial period ends with the battle of Armageddon and the defeat of the Anti-Christ. This signifies the 'end of times' and the end of history. We then get the return of Christ, and the Rapture in which the faithful are transported to heaven; those few surviving Jews not slaughtered at the battle of Armageddon are then converted to Christianity. See also 'Christian Zionism summarized' posted on the Globalist.org. Website at ⟨http://globalist.org/world_regions/asia/palestine-israel/020423_christian_zionism.html⟩. 16 Paul C. Merkley (1998 Merkley PC 1998 The Politics of Christian Zionism, 1898–1948 London Frank Cass [Google Scholar]) The Politics of Christian Zionism, 1898–1948 (London: Frank Cass), p. 68. 17 The phrase was coined originally by the British Christian Zionist Lord Shaftesbury in 1853. It was used consistently by Zionist propagandists in the United States and elsewhere to argue that Palestine was essentially unpopulated. Today, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) disingenuously claims that 'the phrase … was used occasionally by early Zionists to refer to the fact that the Arab residents of Turkish-ruled Palestine did not consider themselves a "people" separate from the Arabs of surrounding countries …' See ⟨http://www.zoa.org/pressrel2001/20011220a.htm⟩. 18 See 'Christian Zionism and the myth of America' at ⟨http://www.mecchurches.org/newsreport/wol14_2/christianzionism.asp⟩. 19 See Davidson, America's Palestine, pp. 46–47. 20 See Nur Masalha (1992 Masalha N 1992 Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of Transfer in Zionist Thought, 1882–1948 Washington, DC Institute for Palestine Studies [Google Scholar]) Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of Transfer in Zionist Thought, 1882–1948 (Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies), p. 87. 21 Weinberg, Manifest Destiny, pp. 73, 79. 22 Shabtai Teveth (1985 Teveth S 1985 Ben Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War London Oxford University Press [Google Scholar]) Ben Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 38. 23 See Weinberg, Manifest Destiny, pp. 143–154. See also David Ben-Gurion quotes based on declassified documents and personal diaries at ⟨http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Famous-Zionist-Quotes/Story638.html⟩. 24 Cited in Davidson, America's Palestine, pp. 51–52. 25 Woodrow Wilson, 8th State of the Union Message, 7 December 1920. 26 Davidson, America's Palestine, pp. 16, 21. 27 See ⟨http://www.errantskeptics.org/quotes_by_presidents.htm⟩. 28 Davidson, America's Palestine, p. 174. 29 Merkley, Politics of Christian Zionism, p. 191. 30 Davidson, America's Palestine, p. 220. 31 ⟨http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/US-Israel/presquote.html⟩. 32 ⟨http://www.eyeranian.net/2003/11/19,518.shtml⟩. 33 Andrew Lang, 'Convergence: the politics of Armageddon,' at ⟨http://www.prop1.org/inaugur/85reagan/85rrarm.htm⟩. 34 Cited in Lee Mcauliffe Rambo, 'Bush believes he is leading a Holy War,' Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 13 April 2003. 35 This comes to approximately 40 million Americans; see the following polls: New York Times poll published on 7 December 1997; Newsweek polls (conducted by Princeton Research Associates) on 24 October 1999 and 1 May 2000; and the CNN/USA Today poll of 22 November 2002. See also the BBC report, 'President Bush and religion,' 7 May 2002; Jane Lampman's article in the Christian Science Monitor, 17 March 2003; and Newsweek, 'Year 2000 and the history of prophecy,' 1 November 2000. 36 Cited in Guardian Weekly, 21–27 November 2002, p. 23. Rove has argued that in the 2000 presidential election some four million American evangelicals, 'all natural Bush supporters,' did not vote. His goal for the 2004 election was to get a significant portion of these potential voters to the polls; see Rupert Cornwell, 'In God he trusts—how George Bush infused the White House with a religious spirit,' The Independent, 21 February 2003. 37 Cited in the Jordan Times, 14 November 2002. 38 ⟨http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/03/60minutes/main524268.shtml⟩. 39 ⟨http://www.israelunitycoalition.com/⟩. 40 Cited in Ken Silverstein & Michael Scherer, 'Born again Zionists,' Mother Jones, September/October 2002. McAteer also hopes to be the 'first evangelical ambassador to Israel.' 41 A minority of conservative Christians disapprove of the one-sidedness of the Bush administration's foreign policy. About 'forty evangelical leaders' wrote to the president in the summer of 2002 asking for an 'evenhanded US policy toward Israel and the Palestinians.' They also pointedly rejected 'the way some have distorted biblical passages for their rationale for uncritical support for Israel'; see further Lampman, Christian Science Monitor, 17 March 2003. Some of these disapproving evangelicals assert that Bush has distorted Christian theology into an 'American civil religion'; see further Jim Wallis, 'Dangerous religion,' Sojourners Magazine, September/October 2003. See also Corinne Whitlatch, 'Christian commitment to peacemaking is distorted by Christian Zionists,' at ⟨http://www.pcusa.org/washington/issuesnet/me-030610.htm⟩. 42 For instance, they adamantly oppose something as mild as Bush's 'Roadmap to Peace'; see Giles Fraser, 'Evangelicals in the US believe there is a biblical basis for opposing the Middle East Road Map,' Guardian, 9 June 2003. Attacking the road map, Ed McAteer said: 'It's not a road map. It's a roadblock. Every grain of sand in that piece of real estate backed up by the Jordan River, the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean belongs to the Jewish people because God gave it to them'; cited in Carol Eisenberg, 'Road Map testing their faith,' Newsday, 10 June 2003. McAteer's position mimics closely those of fanatical Jewish settlers who in a June 2003 rally in Jerusalem held up signs that read 'To Divide Our Land is to Defy God'; see Haaretz, 4 June 2003. The Fourth Geneva Convention, which makes the Israeli settlement movement illegal under international law is disregarded or held in disdain by both McAteer and the Israeli colonists. 43 For instance, on 1 May 2002 Congressmen Richard Armey, a Christian Zionist and then leader of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives, told MSNBC talk show host Chris Mathews that he supported the expulsion of Palestinians from the Occupied Territories (West Bank and Gaza). 44 See the American Jewish newspaper Forward, 18 October 2002. Appearing at the 2002 Christian Coalition convention in Washington, along with House Majority leader Tom Delay, was Benny Elon, the leader of Israel's Moledet Party. Elon drew cheers from thousands of attendees waving Israeli flags when he called for the 'relocation' of West Bank Palestinians to Jordan. 45 ⟨http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2002/37/ma_109_01.html⟩. 46 See the Guardian, 4 April 2003, ⟨http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,929399,00.html⟩. 47 Donald Wagner, 'The interregnum: Christian Zionism in the Clinton years,' The Daily Star, 13 October 2003. 48 In an interview with Bob Woodward in 2002 Bush said: 'I am not a textbook player. I'm a gut player'; cited in Richard Brookhiser, 'The mind of George Bush,' The Atlantic Monthly, April 2003, p. 62. See also Jane Lampman, Christian Science Monitor, 17 March 2003. 49 ⟨http://www.jimpix.co.uk/words/bush_speech.asp⟩. 50 Howard Fineman, 'Bush and God,' Newsweek, 10 March 2003, p. 25. 51 Howard Fineman, 'Bush and God,' Newsweek, 10 March 2003, p. 33. 52 Howard Fineman, 'Bush and God,' Newsweek, 10 March 2003, p. 24. 53 Howard Fineman, 'Bush and God,' Newsweek, 10 March 2003, p. 28. 54 Howard Fineman, 'Bush and God,' Newsweek, 10 March 2003, p. 21. 55 Philadelphia Inquirer, 9 February 2003, p. A11. 56 White House Staff quote. 57 Frum quote. 58 Evans quote. 59 See Bush speech in Atlanta, Georgia, 8 November 2001.