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The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

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The most misleading piece of misinformation about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is that it cannot be understood: (1) Too complicated and (2) too ancient. This book dispells both myths and succeeds in covering the entire waterfront of the Middle East conflict in just 296 pages.

#1: Rosemary Radford Ruether writes the obvious: To understand the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, one must begin by telling the truth. Surprisingly, the truth is information any informed Israeli, Palestinian, or American would agree upon. But it is information tha takes enormous effort to dig out and put together, because it is covered by layer upon layer of disinformation, clever semantics, guilt, fear, the self-interest of a few, and predjudice. But even given these formidable screens, the facts can be registered by the ordinary mind. The good news is, as of the publishing of THE WRATH OF JONAH, one does not have to dig it all out and put it together oneself. The Ruethers have done so in easily comprehended prose, concisely and comprehensively. The fact that they have been able to do so in so few pages testifies to the simplicity of the subject relative to its reputation.

#2: A very large proportion of Americans believe Arabs and Jews have been in conflict thousands of years. But history of the conflict goes back only a century, and most important incidents only within the last fifty years! ...Another reason THE WRATH OF JONAH can survey its history in a short volume.

Between them the authors bring expertise in both secular and religious causes and effects. Previously, even determined readers could not find both in the same place.

The fun part of the book was how much I learned about twentieth century world history in general and about the last century's Jewish and American, Christian religious movements--taking place underneath my nose unnoticed.

Surprising to most readers will be that one does not have to understand Islam to understand the Middle Eastern crisis.

THE WRATH OF JOHAH is not partisan, yet it pulls no punches. It is compassionate to everyone caught in the tragedy, but it does not confuse justice with "even-handedness."

The Ruethers even provide some common sense suggestions for real solutions. They, too, are not complicated, but you probably haven't seen them in print before.

Unfortunately, matters in the region are worsening, and the authors provide little hope that common sense will prevail. Still, it is worth the read if only to resolve cognitive dissonance.

Usually, when one does research on a conflict such as the one in the Middle East between the Palestinians and Israelis, you would think that the person who conducts the research would have the integrity to fairly investigate both sides of the conflict. Not just one.

In the case of the Ruethers, they chose to look at just one side of the coin. This is evident as the authors state "In this book we wish to express our concerns for the injustice that has been done to the Palestinian people by both Israel and Western Christian peoples..."

As for the injustices that have been done to the Israelis by the Palestinians, such as repeated terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians, as well as promotion of anti-Semitism, forget it! The authors shamelessly blame all of the above on the Zionists, and even suggest that they are the root cause of all of this.

For example, in reference to the War of Independence in 1948, in which Israel was invaded by the armies of six Arab nations: Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, along with local Arab Palestinian forces, the Ruethers claim that, in a way, the Zionists wished for such event to happen - for the purpose of winning the war and therefore conquer Arab land after each victory. This theory is an insult to the Jews - considering that after the Holocaust, the last thing on a Jew's mind was to engage in a war.

Moving on with this topic, the Ruethers go on to say that although the Israelis faced armies from six countries, Israeli soldiers still outnumbered Arab soldiers, which is why Israel won the war (and therefore should feel guilty for successfully defending itself). Although sources do in fact reveal that the Israelis out-numbered the Arabs in manpower, they also reveal that Arabs outnumbered the Israelis in weapons; tanks, warplanes, machine guns, armoured vehicles, etc., which the authors fail to mention. This demonstrates a biased observation on the part of the Ruethers.

Throughout the book, the Ruethers depict the Zionists and Israelis as intolerant, selfish, dishonest, racist, brutal, hypocritical, corrupted, and greedy, just to name a few. In particular, the Zionists are painted as purely evil. The Palestinians on the other hand, are described as innocent, tolerant people who welcomed the Jews with open arms just to be betrayed and robbed of their land. Obviously, this idea is grossly inconsistent with actual events.

The Ruethers pretty much blame almost everything on the Zionists and Israelis: i.e.: poverty, struggling economy, lack of education and job opportunities, racism, etc, and ignore much of the corruption within the Palestinian leadership (PLO).

Another example of biasness is their analysis of the infamous six-day war. In 1967, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Algeria joined forces together to wage war on Israel for the simple purpose of destroying the Jews and the state of Israel once and for all. However, the Ruethers did not mention this alliance in such context; Instead, they chose to focus on the suffering of the Arabs as a result of Israel's victory.

But what was Israel suppose to do, let itself be defeated so that there would be no casualties on the Arab side? Not to confiscate certain territories such as the Golan Heights so that the Arabs continue to use these high mountains for launching missiles at Israeli civilians? Also, the Ruethers fail to clarify that Israel used these confiscated territories as a bargaining tool for peace negotiations, i.e. returning land in exchange for guaranteed peace. Instead, the Ruethers portrayed the Israelis as thieves and land grabbers

To sum it up, every atrocity that the Palestinians have committed against the Israelis is justified. Whenever the Israelis retaliate, they are condemned with strong language. For instance, the Ruethers write how the Israelis "terrorised" Palestinian communities sometimes without mentioning how, where and when, with no sources either. When the Palestinians attack Israelis, the Ruethers justify it as "uprisings" and also refer to terrorists as "commandos."

Take this example: in the 1972 Olympic games, Palestinian terrorists kidnapped eleven Israeli athletes in Germany and ended up killing all of them. First, the Ruethers do not refer to them as "terrorists" but rather as "Septembrists" since they belonged to the "Black September" movement. Then, the Ruethers claim that the German police force killed most the Israeli hostages. And to add a final insult to injury, the authors criticize Israel's "unjust" retaliation in response to this event.

It is a shame that an expert on anti-Semitism (Rosemary Ruether) would write such garbage. After all, Rosemary Ruether has pointed out in her book, Faith and Fratricide, that many of the early Church fathers' writings about the Jews were anti-Semitic. Ironically enough, Rosemary's own writings in this book are very similar to the anti-Semitic writings of those that she once criticized.

Therefore, by her own definition, this book is anti-Semitic. Again, this is by her own definition, not mine. But then again, her pro-Palestine / anti-Israel husband, Herman Ruether, former acting director for the Palestinian Human Rights Campaign, undoubtedly influenced his wife to use her talents to write this ill one-sided book.

Although this book may be a little out-dated, it is still relevant for anti-Semites.

It is true that Palestinians have been suffering greatly for decades. Both Palestinian and Israelis authorities have crossed the line at many occasions, but to focus on only one group of people and exaggerate the actual events is simply not right.

This book will surely satisfy an anti-Semite. Otherwise, it is not worth reading.

I have been studying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since my recent visit to Israel/Palestine, and I find myself returning again and again to the Ruethers' book as a sane touchstone and source of good facts in the malestrom of propaganda and high emotion that characterizes most publications on this subject. The book is thoroughly researched and sources are cited. While I cannot comment on the appropriateness of the Ruethers' theology to a Jewish reader, as some reviewers have done, I can applaud their even-handedness with both Israelis and Palestinians, criticizing where criticism is due and expressing hope where appropriate. Their criticism of Zionism qua Zionism is somewhat problematic, but then, as they amply demonstrate, Zionism's inherent implications are themselves highly problematic. I wouldn't ever want to see Israel disappear, and I deplore the violence that continues there sporadically, but I don't want the Palestinian people to disappear, either. We so rarely hear their story.

Part of why I recommend this book so highly is that I was able to travel in both Israel and the Occupied Territories recently, and to talk with many groups of people - Israeli settlers, kibbutz-dwellers, Palestinians in Bethlehem, people of all three Abrahamic faiths. And what I saw with my own eyes was deeply disturbing to me, and begged for answers. There is a severe crisis of human rights in the Occupied Territories; many times I looked to the others traveling with me, and though neither of us could bring ourselves to say it, we were thinking the same awful thing: that Israel as a nation seems determined to minimize, humiliate, isolate, abuse, and ultimately "remove" the Palestinians. It was such a disturbing echo of the Jewish people's own worst history, that none of us could understand how Israel, of all the nations of the earth, could be doing all this. It takes a book like Rosemary & Henry's to uncover roots of this deeply intractable and alarming situation, and to correct the endemic American impression that the balance of power favors the Palestinians. I hate to say it, because growing up in a largely Jewish suburb of Chicago I was always inclined to favor Israel's version of events, but this is an honest book; it is a book badly needed, and should be read by practically everybody who cares about the Middle East.

I must say that I bought this book because I wanted to see what the other side was saying. I was not disappointed. Here is an example: "Starting in early December 1947, the Irgun and the Stern Gang, aided by the Haganah, began a campaign of terrorization with bombings and machine-gunnings of Arab crowds. A new stage in this campaign started on April 9th, 1948, when Irgun soldiers entered the peaceful village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem and massacured 250 residents ..." (pg. 133). Notice the words "terroization" "massacured" "machine-gunnings" "peaceful village". Every moral characterization in this book is geared to make the Israeli's look bad, and make the Palestinians smell like roses. There is little or no true persepctive on history in this book. The actual number of persons killed at the Deir Yassin battle were about 110 persons who were enemy forces, both residents and foreign soldiers whose goal it was to occupy the village high ground to interdict supply convoys from reaching the Jews in Jerusalem.
The reason the Ruether's and others are able to suck the world into their point of view on Deir Yassin is because the Hagannah did not like the Lehi (a.k.a. Stern Gang) and Irgun (IZL). So the Jewish Agency told lies about what they did. It is sort of like the left in this country telling lies about the right, i.e. Michael Moore lying about Bush.
On the other hand the Arabs did massacure the Jewish doctors and nurses going to Haddassah Hospital, who unlike the Deir Yassin residents were unarmed and engaged in a peaceful operation.
So Buy this book for a good exercise in propaganda techniques, but if you want true history, then you will have to go elsewhere.

Reuters' book is, essentially, a detailed pro Palestinian Arab Christian and Islamic critique of Jewish nationalism, or Zionism.

Ostensibly, it claims to be a critique of the religious aspect to Palestinian and Israeli nationalisms but, in fact, almost wholly restricts itself to an analysis of the relation of Judaism to Jewish nationalism, Zionism and Israel.

This is surprising, given that both Reuters are Roman Catholics, less so given that Herman J. is former director of the Palestinian Human Rights Campaign.

In no small part the work often reads like a neo-Catholic sermon to Jews as to the nature of True, Universal, Spiritual Judaism, and how Zionism is a violation of all three. The work may be viewed as a neo-Catholic evangel in a post-Christian West.

While Rabbinic strictures on the nature of the final Redemption and Restoration of Israel to the land, and how Jewish nationalism constitutes their betrayal are examined finely, less attention is paid to traditional Christian and Islamic views of Jews and The Land.

While acknowledging that Christian tradition, ab initio, defined the Jews as a nation dispossessed of temple, city and land, by g-d, through the agency of Rome, the original western European colonial empire, as a punishment for their sins, specifically the rejection of Jesus, no moral conclusions are inferred.

Indeed, Reuters, while quoting Patristic tradition that Jews are a nation dispossessed, they then claim, somewhat inconsistently that, only in the 16th century were Jews first regarded as a nation, their heretofore being merely a `religious group' , citing Jews' ability to abandon their `Jewishness' through conversion.

Aside inconsistency, Reuters fail to realise that the racial hostility encountered by Spanish Jews upon conversion arose from the novel situation of Jews' converting en masse. Hithertoo Jews had largely converted as individuals, often into the Christian clergy, creating little ethnic shock for their host societies.

But, all the while, the Jews had still been regarded as an alien nation, as numerous medieval Papal bulls testify.

Again, a somewhat surprising omission given both Reuters' Catholicism and Rosemary Radford's work on medieval Christian antisemitism, Faith and Fraticide.

There is a similar omission with regard to Islam: the Qur'an too addresses the Jews as a people dispossessed (though the Prophet appears to associate their potential future redemption with Return), by Al-ah's servant, Rome. As with Christianity, no moral inferences are drawn.

Nor is the moral inconsistency between Palestinian Arab Christians' and Muslims' traditional definition of the Jews as a nation justly dispossessed, and possessed with no right or restoration or return, even as refugees, and their own claim to exclusive sovereignty and habitation, and later fundamental injustice of their dispossession and justice of restoration and return.

Indeed, Reuters seem to proscribe such a contrast early on when, for instance, they exclude the possibility that Vatican hostility to the Jewish state has any connection to traditional Patristic doctrine that the Jews' proper state is in national dispossession and exile.

This leads to a curious vacuum: while the origins of modern political Zionism are often shown by quotations from early Zionist texts, as well as the Jewish sources and traditions that preceded them, early Palestinian Arab Christian and Islamic nationalism is almost wholly illustrated by secondary references in an Israeli work, with no primary sources cited whatsoever!

Given Herman J's being former director of the Palestinian Human Rights Campaign, this is, again, an extraordinary omission, making it virtually impossible to gauge the influence of Palestinian Arab Christian and Islamic traditions on Palestinians' views of Jews and Jewish nationalism.

All one is shown is the more recent, sophisticated attempts of Palestinian Churches to evolve an anti-Zionist theology that cannot be accused of overt antisemitism.

Here and there one learns interesting facts: the Greek Orthodox dioceses are divided according to Roman Palaestinae Primae, Secundae and Tertiae, revealing the deeper Christian traditional memory's reaching back to Classical antiquity.

The citing of Filastin in occasional 13th century Islamic scholastic usage betrays its almost total extinction by the 10th.

But the more fundamental moral question, I suggest, pressing Roman Catholicism, regards the Christian and Islamic sanctification of Jewish dispossession, the very act that led to the creation of Syria Palaestina, as a provincial entity, in the first place.

While castigating Zionist Jews for the negative effects Palestinian and other Arab Christian and Islamic opposition to Jewish restoration has had on Palestinians, Reuters never ask whether traditional Christian and Islamic sanctification of Jewish dispossession poses a moral dilemma for those Palestinian Arab and other Christians and Muslims who insist that Jewish nationalism must conform to an Absolute Morality. Their assumption, throughout, is that Zionist and other Jews should have placed the good of Palestinian Arab Muslims and Christians before their own.

A similar double standard is their attempt to denationalize Jewish identity despite, in fact, not only most European, Asian and North African but also Palestinian Arab Christians and Muslims' having regarded Jews not only as a nation, or `race', but as a nation historically dispossessed as a divine punishment.

Reuters thus use more nuanced post Enlightenment definitions of `race', `nation' and `people', which scarcely applied to the regions most Israeli Jews originated, including the Arab Islamic world, to penalize Jewish nationalism and nationality.

At least as conspicuous is their attempt to use what they select as the best of Talmudic and Rabbinic Judaism as a stick to beat Israel and Zionism with, with scarcely any reference to the moral implications of traditional Christian and Islamic views, treatments and attitudes towards Jews.

A useful survey is their account of the birth and evolution of North European and American Protestant pro-Jewish Restoration movements, from the 17th century onwards, but they fail to address this from an internal Christian moral point of view: surely, if Patristic doctrine held that the Jews had been dispossessed for a punishment, that implied, at least theoretically, the possibility of Jews' being restored when forgiven?

This last failing arises chiefly because Reuters fail to make any moral assessment of traditional Patristic views of Jews and The Land, preferring it to stand free as though in a moral vacuum, without effect or consequences for Jews.

In short, while promising a scholarly, academic analysis of the role that religion has played in the shaping of the modern Palestinian-Israeli conflict, both brother and sister are clearly driven by a pro-Palestinian apologetic agenda which subjects the Zionist Jewish-Israeli party to a good deal closer scrutiny, moral and historical than their own.

Moreover, their privileging of Roman Catholicism's non ethnic specificity, above Jewish national, Zionist or otherwise, exclusivity, fails to address the birth of Christendom in the Christianizing of Rome, and imperial Roman acts, such as the dispossession of the Jews, both before and after the fact.

A truism, but Reuters both find the mote afar to extract easier than the plank within. In what way, exactly, that serves the higher interests of Absolute Justice, is not entirely clear.

The Reuthers are right to admit that to understand the Arab war against Israel, one must start with truth. But much of what they come up with is closer to brazen lies. And even were it merely controversial and speculative, they could have instead used plenty of simple facts that we could have agreed upon, and from which we could have drawn our own conclusions.

The authors explain that they are for justice and human rights. Once again, I think this is the right approach. But I don't see much of either in this book. One obvious test of justice is this: What if you didn't know whether you were a Muslim, Jew, Christian, Pagan, Arabic-speaker, Hebrew-speaker, soldier, civilian, Arab West Bank settler, Jewish West Bank settler, or whatever? What if you then had to come up with a just solution? What would you do, given that you would find out who you were only after you came up with the answer? Had the Reuthers tried such an approach, they might have seen how far they were from justice.

Now, what about human rights? Well, there is a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Had they looked at it more closely, they would have seen that rights of life, liberty, and security (article 3) ought to belong to both Arabs and Jews, rather than neither. And that article 17 states that no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of their property, while article 30 insists that nothing in the UDHR shall be interpreted in a way as to allow any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms that were previously stated. Again, I think that on such a basis, it becomes clear that for all their nice words, the Reuthers are awfully far from promoting human rights.

The Reuthers state that Jewish nationalism simply required the obliteration of the rights of others. And this raises the leading question of whether it's worth it. But the truth is that Jewish nationalism required no such thing. The Jews who moved into the region in the past two centuries merely required rights to life, liberty, property, and immigration. For them, liberty included the right to speak Hebrew, be Jewish, and build schools and hospitals. And, of course, defend themselves from attack. This did not threaten the rights of anyone else. If all newcomers to a land were to be charged with demolishing the rights of those already there, it would be an international crime to be born anywhere.

The Reuthers overlook the fact that the incoming Jews were a very peaceful group which had not fought as a nation for centuries. These people were, for the most part, not eager to fight, unwilling to fight, and morally opposed to fighting. In addition, they were very small in numbers, had few weapons, and had no army. That gave them no choice but to cooperate with their neighbors and fight only as a very last resort in self-defence. But you won't get that impression from this book! Instead, you'll see claims that the Jewish leadership during the Mandate period planned military adventures to expel non-Jews! Such a plan would have been totally illogical. And, not surprisingly, the historical evidence shows that it didn't happen. In fact, only Arab attacks on Jews (that resulted in a British halt to Jewish immigration) got the Jewish leaders to demand a State at all. In 1948, when Arab states launched an all-out war against Israel in which many Jews were killed or displaced, some Arabs were kicked out of their homes too, but this was tactical, and not part of any grand design.

The Arab population of Israel and the West Bank has gone way up since 1948. The West Bank Jews, not the Arabs, are the ones threatened with ethnic cleansing.

Is this history important? Yes. Not to show that the Jews were guilty or not guilty, but to remind everyone of the bigger picture: peace is a victory for the Jews. It is important to realize that the picture the Reuthers present is inaccurate and inconsistent. It is of people that were busy draining swamps and making the deserts bloom so they could be prosperous and happy and at the same time were suicidally busy trying to figure out how to hurt their far more numerous neighbors so they could get themselves killed!

The truth is that the Jewish population has needed peace desperately, and that's one reason why antizionist thugs have delighted in making bogus offers of peace.

There's one more problem with the overall approach of the Reuthers. To claim that the Jews are stealing land and persecuting innocent victims, they need to give the Jews a reason to act in such an obviously self-destructive manner. And they've got such a reason: fundamental religious claims of ownership. But it's not true: Jewish politics in the region has been dominated by secular elements.

Actually, the Jews got their land by buying it at high prices. They did not just waltz into the Levant unarmed and steal it for no reason from hapless heavily armed Arabs, all in the name of religious fundamentalism. The antizionists are the ones making arbitrary claims to the land, with logic of the form: God does not exist. Therefore God is not in the real estate business. Therefore God did not give the land to the Jews. Therefore She did give it to the Arabs. In perpetuity, no matter how often they sell it to others.

The Jewish claim to the land is simple: they were numerous, they wanted the land, they outbid others for it, they bought it. And if the Reuthers believed in truth, justice, and human rights, we'd be seeing a very different book from them.

If one is looking for a book to tell them the story of how we got where we are in the present day conflict between Israel and the Palestians,this is the book to read. It also has maps showing what territory is being discussed at different dates in the conflict. The book begins at the beginning, that is, how Zioniam was formed and for what purpose. The authors show how the Bible is used by both sides to cement their claims.
For anyone wishing to understand what the problem is all about, this is the book you have been waiting for.

This book claims to be an unbiased assessment of the roots and realities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, concentrating primarily on religion. In all these accounts it fails miserably. It is important to examine just a few of the major problems with this polemic.

1) Religion is the opening point of the book, the point being that since Christianity, Judaism, and Islam share some religious ideas that therefore there is hope for peace. First of all this is just plain bunko. Religion, while on the surface a divider, has little to do with the conflict. Just as religion is an excuse used by the protagonists in the Ireland-English conflict it is a similar excuse in the Middle East.

2) The question of human rights and bias: Barely a page goes by in this `unbiased' and `well-balanced' book that doesn't say hateful or discriminatory canards about Israel and Israeli society. One of the major canards is the question of Zionism and anti-Semitism. We are told that Zionism causes anti-Semitism in a `cycle' of violence. Zionism is said to cause anti-Semitism because those who oppose Israel must take their hatred out on all Jews, because Zionism identifies all Jews with Israel. It is interesting that the book doesn't make the same excuses for those who would blame all Muslims for Sept. 11 despite Bin Ladens appeal to link all Muslims to his ideals.


The vitriol given towards Israel is beyond just rhetoric and `anti-Zionism' it is downright shameful and hate speech directed without due observation of facts or reality. Israel is a "militarist, repressive model of a racist, colonial state(page 222)". "World Jewry is caught in a double bind of a Zionist ideology that both feeds and exploits anti-Semitism(page 223)." There is virtually no understanding of the conflict and it begs the question if the writers ever even visited Israel. An entire section is titled "making Palestinians invisible in Israel". We are told Arab villages in Israel are without electricity and that "Villages find it difficult to communicate with other villages"(pg 144). This is pure absurdity. Not one `village' is without power in Israel and since Israel has standard mail services and phone service and computer internet it would be logical they can communicate. The book claims Arab students "study Hebrew classics"(pg 145) and this is a blatant fabrication, Arabs study Arabic and Muslim law in Israel. However the book acknowledges this by then claiming that by forcing Arabs to learn Arabic they are not made part of Hebrew Israeli society. The book can't seem to make a decision on which anti-Israel propaganda Shtick to use.

The Arabs are not `invisible' in Israel. If anything their high standard of living, large single family homes and BMWs are more than visible. The book isn't based on reality, even in the important section where it discusses Arab Christians it fails to mention the more than one dozen anti-Christian riots by Muslim Arabs in recent years(Nazareth 1999, Turan 2000, Mughar 2005, Taiba 2005). This read is complete propaganda, brushing on anti-Semitism in its conclusion.

Seth J. Frantzman