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BY MARY PRAGER

In print | November 15, 2007

Invited to speak at the college by the Swarthmore Organization for Israel, Dr. Michael Oren, a recipient of numerous accolades, presented a lecture called “Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East from 1776-Present” this past Monday. Among other distinctions, Oren is a noted historian, Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center, author of best-selling books on the Middle East and a professor at Yale University.

“Our goal in sponsoring Oren’s lecture was to provide a historical context within which students can develop informed opinions regarding American involvement in the Middle East,” said SOFI member and event organizer, Aaron Brecher ‘10 in an e-mail. "To understand the U.S. – Israel relationship, as well as current events in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere, one must examine over 230 years of America’s strategic, civic, religious and cultural interests that extend far beyond oil and Christian and Jewish Zionism."

Challenging the common notion that U.S. involvement in the Middle East began after WWII, Oren argued that the United States has been tied to the Middle East since its foundation, and that U.S. perceptions of the region have been largely informed through the three lenses of power, faith and fantasy. “My purpose is to share my immense, enduring fascination of this legacy,” Oren said.

Beginning with the Barbary Wars against the pirates of Tripoli, Oren defined U.S. power as the “pursuit and defense of the United States’ vital interests in the Middle East.” In response to the “existential threat” from the Barbary pirates, the United States formed its navy, and, Oren said, the divided states were forced to coalesce in order to increase their power.

At the time, the conflict with the pirates caused debate at the Constitutional Convention between different groups (primarily New Englanders and Southerners) who respectively believed in military confrontation and continued conciliation with the Barbary states. Each group saw the construction of a strong central government as holding differing implications for their individual policy aims.

Moreover, Oren said that faith, both religious and civic, also informed U.S. actions in the Middle East. According to Oren, the Puritans appropriated the idea of a promised land from the Old Testament and considered America to be a promised land of sorts. Furthermore, the founding fathers identified with biblical values, and supported Restorationism.

Oren also discussed how much of the U.S. perception of and approach to the Middle East is informed by fantasy and myth, much of which stems from the stories of “One Thousand and One Arabian Nights.” In the latter half of the 19th century, Americans traveled extensively to the Middle East with the tome under their arms and an image of the region embedded in their minds, only to arrive and be disappointed with reality. According to Oren, Hollywood and the media “exoticizes and eroticizes the Middle East.”

The hardest task, says Oren, is removing myth from reality and disengaging from the misconceptions that the U.S. has with regard to the Middle East — as well as realizing that power alone can’t achieve all of America’s goals. He concluded his lecture with a metaphor used by George McClellan: Americans view the Middle East as a tarnished mirror that, with a bit of polishing, can be made to resemble the U.S. This view, Oren said, is detrimental both to U.S. – Middle East relations and to fostering a deep understanding of the region.

Despite a last-minute change in time and location, Oren’s lecture proved exceedingly popular with the Swarthmore community, with over a hundred students, teachers, faculty and community members attending, according to Brecher. Audience members found Oren engaging and knowledgeable.

“The historical references in relation to Middle Eastern affairs were all new to me because they hadn’t been emphasized when I was learning about history,” Syeda Tasnim ’08 said. “It was worth going to because he provided a different perspective for me, and his argument and approach to the issue and to understanding this issue was novel.”

“I personally think he spoke very well, and actually a little bit surprised he didn’t call America out on more, because we’re kind of ridiculous … [With] the number of truly strange things that the United States has been involved in, in the course of its history, I’m surprised that more of them weren’t brought to light and looked down upon for their general stupidity,” SOFI member Alexander Warso ’11 said.

“Michael Oren is obviously a very skilled speaker. His presentation was very strong and I was engaged regardless of the fact that I do not agree with him on many points,” Ruth McDonough ‘08 said in an e-mail. "What struck me as particularly skillful was the presentation of historical facts that cannot be contested in language that communicated Oren’s personal bias."

After the lecture, members of the audience were invited to ask questions and have their copies of his new book, which shares the lecture’s title, signed.

According to attendee Ronni Sadovsky ‘08, during the Q&A session, an audience member asked Oren about Israel-Iran relations. “He … took [the discussion] to nuclear war between Israel and Iran, saying that nuclear war between Iran and Israel would destroy Israel. I feel like what he was trying to do [was] portray Israel as the underdog,” Sadovsky said. "I think that in portraying Israel as the underdog he was pushing us to identify with and root for Israel, because everyone loves the underdog. I personally am very pro-Israel, and I consider myself a Zionist, but I’m really wary of the way that people can use emotion and identification to manipulate my focus when telling me about the Middle East," she said.

Afterwards, according to Warso, SOFI members who were key organizers of the event and a few members of the Jewish community around Swarthmore joined Oren for a private dinner. “SOFI members, and I especially, were very pleased with the caliber of students’ questions and the event’s turnout,” Brecher said in an e-mail.

Brecher, who interned at the Shalem Center in Israel, said that he had recommended Oren as a potential speaker. “Since then, several SOFI members have heard Oren speak in Israel and became interested in inviting him to Swarthmore,” Brecher said. “I myself have read both of Oren’s bestsellers and dozens of his articles, and jumped at the opportunity to invite a historian of his caliber to Swarthmore. Fortunately, Oren is teaching at Yale this semester, and SOFI was able to add Swarthmore to Oren’s itinerary on his recent trip to Philadelphia.”

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