A common complaint from those steeped in religious belief is that the mainstream media generally pay scant attention to religion issues unless there’s a political angle to exploit (or even better, a scandal; the sexier the better).
As a mainstream media member, mark me down as among the often guilty. But unapologetically so. Because to quote a certain White House acting chief of staff (as of this writing, that is), “Get over it.”
That’s just the way it is in our material world and no amount of high-minded whining will change it. So critics: it’s disingenuous to deny that religion and politics are not frequently entwined, for better or (more often) worse.
GetReligion head honcho Terry Mattingly tackled this question in a recent post and podcast devoted to Russia’s self-proclaimed role as chief protector of Middle East Christians — in particular those with Orthodox Christian bona fides. His point was that religion was an essential part of the equation, in addition to the obvious political and economic realities.
Syria, where Russia has taken over as the major outside power broker now that President Donald Trump has relinquished the United State’s role there, is a current case in point.
But Christians are not the only faith group of concern to the Kremlin. Syrian Jews, despite being few in number, have also stirred Russia’s interest. It’s as clear a case of politics overshadowing religious connections as you’ll find.
This recent analysis published by the liberal Israeli English-Hebrew daily Haaretz alerted me to the situation. (Paywall alert.)
The piece was thin on just what Syrian Jews Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated, during a recent trip to Hungary, he is concerned about. Was he referring to the less than two-dozen Mizrahi Jews (Jews long connected to Arab lands) estimated to still reside in Syria?
Or, and more likely, was he referring to the estimated few thousand Kurdish Jews who also remain in Syria? (Remember, Kurds are a large and varied ethnic and cultural group. Most Kurds practice a version of Sunni Islam, but others follow Christianity, Judaism and other minority faiths.)
I say more likely because, as the piece does make clear, Putin’s desire is more about keeping the U.S. military from returning in full force to the slice of northeast Syria until recently controlled in the main by Kurds than it is about any sincere concern for Jews.
Putin, aware of the criticism over what was seen as a wholesale abandonment of the Syrian Kurds that Trump received from, among others, many American evangelical Christian leaders who otherwise generally support his policies, is concerned that Trump will feel the need to return American military forces to the region to bolster his re-election chances.
As Haaretz scribe Zvi Bar’el put it:
This is not pure altruism on the part of the Russian leader, who, throughout the years of Russia’s military involvement in Syria, had not been especially moved by the killings of civilians of any religions.
Jews are part of this equation only because Putin is also aware of evangelical Christian concerns for Jewish interests as part of their strong support for Israel. Were Kurdish Jews to be threatened by radical Muslim fighters supported by Turkey, Israel, now home to most of the world’s Kurdish Jews, and a supporter of the Kurds in general, might feel compelled to act.
That could add to the pressure put on Trump by his evangelical supporters and his big-donor, politically conservative Jewish American supporters.
In short, it’s complicated. Politically and religiously. But it’s nothing new for the Middle East.
Here’s Bar’el again:
Putin’s religious diplomacy recalls the policies adopted by the great powers in previous centuries, when they extended their patronage over non-Muslim communities in the Ottoman Empire. This led to these communities achieving major political and diplomatic status while simultaneously allowing these powers to intervene in events in the Ottoman Empire by claiming that they were protecting their protégés. The irony is that Trump, the darling of American evangelicals, now has to rely on Russia as the leader of Mideast Christians, as only it can now stop the wild behavior of the Turkish forces and their allies in Syria.
So, to again quote a certain White House acting chief of staff, “Get over it.”
Because humanity, showing it’s wisdom to again be unassailable, has forever linked its beliefs in the hereafter with its needs in the here and now.