|
God, Guns &
Israel
EXTRACT from
THE AUSTRALIAN JEWISH
NEWS
How Christian Britain helped make Israel – Sol Encel
GOD, GUNS AND ISRAEL
Jill Hamilton
VIEWERS of the
television adaptation of George Eliot’s novel Daniel Deronda may
have wondered where the author drew her inspiration for the hero’s
intention to "give a political existence to my people, making them a
nation again". Hamilton’s book shows us how widespread were such
ideas at the time (in the 1870s), so that they formed part of the
novelist’s intellectual and social milieu. George Eliot herself was
a deeply religious person, influenced by the strongly evangelical
Christianity of the period.
Hamilton’s book
reminds us of some striking connections between the evangelical
sects and the birth of Israel. In 1838, a group of missionaries
arrived in Jerusalem with the aim of converting "God’s ancient
people". They were led by a Scottish preacher, Andrew Bonar, one of
whose companions was William Wingate, who spent many years as a
missionary in the East End of London. Almost a century later Andrew
Bonar’s grandson, Andrew Bonar Law (prime minister in 1922-23) was a
member of the British War Cabinet which, in 1917, issued the
document known forever after as the Balfour Declaration. Twenty
years later the great-grandson of William Wingate, the soldier Orde
Wingate, was instrumental in creating the Palmach, the commando
force which played a crucial role in Israel’s war of independence.
Hamilton notes that
the Balfour Declaration was produced by a group of politicians of
nonconformist or evangelical backgrounds for whom the Old Testament
had been a major formative influence. This applied to seven out of
the 10 members of the British War Cabinet. It was as if "the pages
of the Old Testament were scattered to form the sections of a
temporary bridge between Britain and the Holy Land".
The decisive voice in
the British War Cabinet’s deliberations, which lasted throughout
1917, was that of the prime minister, David Lloyd George. Lloyd
George, himself a Baptist lay preacher, once remarked that he
preferred the Old Testament to the New Testament, and that he had
learnt the names of the rivers, valleys and mountains of the Holy
Land long before those in either Wales or England.
Hamilton herself, or
more properly the Duchess of Hamilton, was born and brought up in
Australia, where she worked as a journalist before moving to
Britain. She explains that her interest in the Middle East derives
from her father, who served in the Australian Light Horse, and
entered Damascus with the Australian cavalry just a few hours ahead
of T E Lawrence and the Emir Feisal. This is her third book dealing
with Middle Eastern history. The present volume addresses the
conundrum which has occupied many historians – how and why did
Britain find it expedient to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine
within the British Empire?
Although her
fascination with the role of the "Christian Zionists" permeates the
book, she is careful not to overplay this theme, and concludes that
it was the combination of a set of motivations: Lloyd George’s
attraction to Weizmann’s saying that Palestine, like Wales, was "a
little mountainous country"; safeguarding the Suez Canal; the
protection of trade and empire; the pre-empting of French claims in
Palestine; and the rallying of Jews worldwide to the Allied cause.
Lloyd George once remarked, in another context, that the politician
"must grasp the future while it is molten". He did so himself. The
shape of the present Middle East crystallized from that molten mass.
Sol Encel is emeritus
professor of sociology at the University of New South Wales.
|
|
