Jonathan Tobin, writing in JewishWorldReview.com, reports:
In 1844, a biblical scholar and professor of Hebrew at New York University published a pamphlet urging the establishment of a Jewish state in the place then known as Palestine.
The name of this early Zionist who argued for the recreation of Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel: George Bush.
But the astonishing thing about this manifesto is not just that the author was a forebear of two later U.S. presidents of the same name. It was that his advocacy of a theological/political position known as "restorationism" — support for the "restoration" of the Jewish people to their historic homeland — was common in 19th century America.…
All this and more in historian Michael Oren's (Six Days of War) new book, Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present.