HONOR THE PROMISE: America's Commitment To Israel

Robert F. Drinan, the first priest to be elected to Congress, has written a relatively brief but powerful indictment of anti-Semitism in the western world, and of the cool (or at most lukewarm) reception Israel still receives in many official Christian circles and organizations. Drinan's thesis is blunt and straightforward: Christians must face up to the centuries of anti-Jewish distortions and persecutions and totally commit themselves to the support of Israel, partly at least ""in reparation or restitution for the genocide of Jews carried out in a nation whose population was over-whelmingly Christian."" Aware, as a congressman must be, of the awesome potentials for economic blackmail inherent in this decade's increasing US dependence upon both Arab oil and petrodollar business, Drinan issues a vigorous, unequivocal, and impassioned plea for continued unswerving American support for Israel in the ongoing economic confrontation with the Arab world. In simple, terse language, Drinan condenses a wide range of material and data, tapping both scholarly works and theological landmarks from the beginning of Christianity through the Second Vatican Conference to the recent anti-Israel resolutions in the United Nations. Rarely does he mince words, or act the apologist--though he places historic instances of anti-Semitism in their proper perspective--and his surprisingly blunt indictment of the errors of the past is as total as his commitment to the future of Israel. Though this is a reasoned and carefully written book, it is also, necessarily, somewhat polemical. Ultimately, of course, it is a plea for moral rectitude in an era of acute pragmatism, and as such it deserves a wide hearing.