when even Arafat wanted to come tonsome agreement with Hussein on thenReagan plan, he did not dare to do so.nAnd, while Le Carre seems to find moralnvalue in the suffering of Palestinians inncontrast to what he calls the “self indulgentndilemmas of affluent Western man,”ntheir plight is, in great part, the result ofnmoral defects within Arab society which,nwith the exception of Jordan, has refusednto integrate them, preserving the refugeencamps as a weapon against Israel and as antool in inter-Arab struggles for regionalndominance.nOn originally visiting the camps, LenCarre vvrote that he “was astonished atnmy own simple perception: We havenneglected entirely the Palestinian case.”nOn the face of it, this is a remarkablenstatement. The United Nations continuouslyntrumpets the Palestinian problem;nmore states maintain official relationsnwith the PLO than with the state of Israel;nand an unceasing barrage of propagandanemanates from “progressive” journalsnand groups in every Western country.nSo what must really bother Le Carre isnthat the ordinary person in Westernncountries has clung to a perception ofnnumerous Arab states intent on destroyingna small Jewish state, their efforts buttressednby the entire Moslem world andnthe Soviet bloc. Against them Israelnstands in near-isolation, given supportnby the United States, but in a half-heartednmanner, unlike that enjoyed by the Arabsnin their campaign against her. Moreover,none with an unprejudiced eye clearlynsees that the Israelis have maintainedncivilized standards of behavior, stubbornlynrefusing to become the mirrornimage of their enemies that intellectualsnlike Le Carre would dearly loventhem to be.nLe Carre has set out to undermine thencommon sense of the common mannwith what Alan Pryce-Jones aptly callsnhis “demonological” fiction, which willnreach millions through paperback editionsnand sway millions more throughnthe more powerful images of the filmnversion now being prepared. DnOur Singular Tribe of BennRonald W. Clark: Benjamin Franklin;nRandom House; New York.nby Otto J. ScottnXt’s no secret that there is somethingnseriously wrong with the way Americannhistory is written and taught. To criticizenRonald W. Clark for a lack of candornin his biography of Benjamin Franklin isnnot, therefore, to single him out. Onenwould expect Clark, as an Englishman,nto be unsparing in his descriptions ofnAmericans. That he is not is disappointing.nSome honest truths about Franklinnwould enlarge general understandingnabout one of the smoothest, most dexterousnand enigmatic figures among thenFounding Fathers.nUnfortunately, Clark’s vision of Frankfinnis clouded by the prevailing academicntheories about the origins of the War ofnIndependence (often miscalled a “Revolution”)nas propounded by such historiansnas Carl Becker and James Beard.nThese Marxist-oriented scholars consideredneconomic motives (i.e., money) tonbe the root of the difficulties betweennthe colonies and Britain. Relying uponnsuch theories, Clark repeats the hoarynstereotypes of modem sociology. This isnnot history, and it is not accurate. Clarknwould have done better to have lookedninto Carl Bnda±>aa^’sMitreandScep^nwhich traces the persistent campaign ofnthe Church of England to expand its established,nauthoritative status into thencolonies. Clark might also have lookedninto the works of Perry Miller, who (despitensome distortions of Calvinist theology)nprovides a salutary corrective tonmyths of Puritan smpidity. According tonLoraine Boettner, “At the time of the Independence,nthere were approximatelyn3,000,000 persons in the American colonies.nNine hundred thousand of thesenwere of Scots-Irish origin, 600,000 werenMr. Scott is a frequent contributor tonthesepages.nnnPuritan English and 400,000 were Germannor Dutch Reformed … the ThirtyninenArticles provided a Calvinistic tingento the Episcopalians… two-thirds of thencolonial population had been trained innthe school of Calvin (and came to Americannot primarily for commercial gain ornadvantage, but because of deep religiousnconviction).” That is not to say thatnChristianity was completely homogeneousnin the Colonies. But Calvinism wasnthe major influence, affecting the 20,000nCatholics, as well as the Quakers, Jews,nArminians, and even the rationalists.nCalvinist attitudes can be traced tonGeneva, Scotland, and Holland. An earlynhigh point (inexplicably ignored bynAmerican contemporary “scholars”)nwas Vindicae Contra Tyrannos (1579)nfollowed by the Dutch Declaration ofnIndependence (a forerunner of the laternDeclarations in the colonies, of whichnthere were a number) of 1581. Still later,nJohn Knox convinced the Scots that aniUler was a subject to the law and that itnwas the duty of Christians to rise againstnnon-Christian or anti-Christian rulers.nThe examples to which the colonistsnlooked were the Dutch Republic andnCromwell’s Revolution. They did notnagree with the Restoration (which sentnmany thousands in flight to America)nnor with the “Glorious Revolution” thatnswitched the divine right of kings to thendivine right of Parliament. This assumptionnof authority was regarded as impiousnand blasphemous. That position wasnstrengthened when Parliament enactednlaws for the colonies without colonialnrepresentation. In first a theological andnthen a political sense, therefore, thenchurches of America lined up their congregationsnagainst the Crown and Parliament.nThis was so widespread and wellnunderstood a situation that when hostOitiesnerupted, Horace Walpole told thenHouse of Commons: “Cousin Americanhas run off with a Presbyterian parson.”nIn the course of the war, colonialnchurches were targeted for destructionnHM^S7nAugust 1983n