Showing posts with label Christian Right. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christian Right. Show all posts

Patriots Protest 'Rev' John Hagee

By Willis A. Carto


They told me in Sunday School that Jesus Christ was the “Prince of peace.” If my teachers were right, then people like Pat Robertson, John Hagee, Tim LaHaye and others of their stripe are criminals, not Christians. Robertson and Hagee are strong advocates of war. They want the U.S. to hit Iran with all we’ve got and kill as many innocent Persians as possible.


Why? Because, they claim, the Iranians want to bomb their favorite country—Israel, which they believe is where God lives.


According to them, God is unhappy with his peacenik Son but he likes these three slobs and their adoring camp followers.


Well, this is not the first time we have noted that Robertson is no friend of ours. He once excoriated
The Spotlight—our predecessor—for catching on to the clear fact that Robertson is a profiteer of the most sleazy kind, a religious fraud who makes lots of money shaking down sincere Christians by convincing them he has a direct pipeline to God.


Few things in this world are as contemptible as fraudsters who claim to have direct communication to God and use this awful lie to pervert Christianity. Unfortunately, Robertson has made millions by panhandling with his slick Elmer Gantry line. Robertson has squeezed many millions of dollars from sincere Christians who would never believe that he is the fraud he is.


Hagee preaches that Israel is God’s chosen nation and does not have to conduct itself in a civilized manner as do other nations. Hagee says nothing about the Talmud—the Jewish holy book that requires Jews to hate and kill

Christians.

In 1982 Israel totally obliterated two Palestinian refugee camps, Sabra and Shatilla, killing 2,300 Palestinians, including children and pregnant women after driving some 660,000 into the desert. Today they live in tents and small houses they built for themselves. The U.S. demands that the UN pay for the meager living expenses of these refugees. Of course, most of the UN budget is paid for by U.S. taxpayers.


Hagee insanely wants the U.S.A. to nuclear bomb Iran and start another war. He believes this will start Armageddon and destroy the world, and he and his followers will be wafted up to heaven.


Hagee operates a number of independent businesses, of which his “religious” scam, Global Evangelism TV, is only one. His income is over $50 million per year and he pays little or no income tax. He has an airstrip, a jet plane and crew, given him by U.S.-supported Israel. He has a 7,600-acre ranch in Brackettville, Texas, a chef, waiters, servants and ranch hands to feed himand other animals. He operates a hotel there and charges $250 per night.


The Bible explicitly commands that the only way for Jews to attain salvation is through Christ. But Hagee preaches that Jews do not have to accept Christ to go to heaven. Galatians 1:9 says, “If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that you have received, let him be accursed.”


End of article.

The 'Rev' is obviously unaware of Matthew 19:24 - text pasted below for ready reference:

"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
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Bible quotes adorned covers of top-secret Rumsfeld intelligence reports

By David Edwards and Jeremy Gantz

Top secret military intelligence briefings prepared by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and often hand-delivered to George W. Bush featured Crusades-like Bible quotes above triumphant photos of the U.S. military effort in Iraq.

Less than one month after U.S. and coalition forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, a "Worldwide Intelligence Update" reached then-President Bush with the following quote on the cover of the briefing, above photos of jubilant Iraqi crowds in newly liberated Baghdad: "Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death."

One week earlier, on April 3, 2003, another of these reports reached Bush, and its cover contained a passage from the book of Proverbs: "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."

Revelations of these top-secret briefings containing explicitly Christian messages appeared today on GQ magazine’s Web site.

Texan journalist Robert Draper, who wrote an authorized biography of George W. Bush called "Dead Certain," obtained the cover sheets from a former Bush administration official. Draper writes:

These cover sheets were the brainchild of Major General Glen Shaffer, a director for intelligence serving both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense. In the days before the Iraq war, Shaffer’s staff had created humorous covers in an attempt to alleviate the stress of preparing for battle. Then, as the body counting began, Shaffer, a Christian, deemed the biblical passages more suitable.

Many inside the Pentagon, including one Muslim analyst, were offended by the biblical quotes, while others worried that the briefing cover sheets, if leaked, would do serious damage as the U.S. and its allied coalition of mostly Western troops prosecuted a war in an Islamic nation.

The Bible quotes adorned the reports in part because Rumsfeld wanted to forge a connection with his boss, Draper writes:

[P'ublicly flaunting his own religious views was not at all [Rumsfeld]’s style…but it was decidedly Bush’s style, and Rumsfeld likely saw the Scriptures as a way of making a personal connection with a president who frequently quoted the Bible.

Rumsfeld was intensely disliked by many high-level Bush administration officials, who wished he had been fired long before he actually was, Draper reports.

"Though few of these individuals would speak for the record (knowing that their former boss, George W. Bush, would not approve of it)," Draper writes, "they believe that Rumsfeld’s actions epitomized the very traits—arrogance, stubbornness, obliviousness, ineptitude—that critics say drove the Bush presidency off the rails."

Additional images of "Worldwide Intelligence Update" cover sheets can be found at the URLs below.

http://216.87.173.33/media/2009/0905/gq_rumsfeld_briefing_s1_090517a.jpg

http://216.87.173.33/media/2009/0905/gq_rumsfeld_briefing_s2_090517a.jpg

http://216.87.173.33/media/2009/0905/gq_rumsfeld_briefing_s3_090517a.jpg

http://216.87.173.33/media/2009/0905/gq_rumsfeld_briefing_s4a_090517a.jpg

http://216.87.173.33/media/2009/0905/gq_rumsfeld_briefing_s5_090517a.jpg

http://216.87.173.33/media/2009/0905/gq_rumsfeld_briefing_s6_090517a.jpg

http://216.87.173.33/media/2009/0905/gq_rumsfeld_briefing_s7_090517a.jpg

http://216.87.173.33/media/2009/0905/gq_rumsfeld_briefing_s8_090517a.jpg

http://216.87.173.33/media/2009/0905/gq_rumsfeld_briefing_s9_090517a.jpg

http://216.87.173.33/media/2009/0905/gq_rumsfeld_briefing_s10_090517a.jpg

http://216.87.173.33/media/2009/0905/gq_rumsfeld_briefing_s11_090517a.jpg

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An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee:

I had been attending the Cornerstone Church
for weeks, but this was really my first day of
school. I had joined Cornerstone --
a megachurch in the Texas Hill Country --
to get a look inside the evangelical mind-set
that gave the country eight years of George W. Bush.
The church's pastor, John Hagee, is one of the
most influential evangelical preachers in the
country -- not because his ministry is so very
large (although he claims up to 4.5 million
viewers a week for his Sunday sermons) but
because of his near-absolute conquest of a
very trendy niche in the market: Christian Zionism.

The whole idea behind Christian Zionism is
to align America with the nation of Israel so
as to "hurry God up" in his efforts to bring
about Armageddon. As Hagee tells it, only
after Israel is involved in a final showdown
involving a satanic army (in most interpretations,
a force of Arabs led by Russians) will Christ
reappear. On that happy day, Hagee and his
True Believers will be whisked up to Heaven
by God, while the rest of us nonbelievers are
left behind on Earth to suck eggs and generally
suffer various tortures.

Read the full article here: http://www.alternet.org/rights/84043?page=entire
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The Children of Palestine and Israel are Cannon Fodder for the Rapture Video included

For John Hagee, McCain's controversial 'spiritual guide,'
dead children is the price one pays for rapture.

Robert Weitzel says that since the beginning of the
second intifada in September 2000, over 1,000
Palestinian and Israeli children have been killed by
bullets and bombs. According to Pastor John Hagee
and his evangelical organization, Christians United For
Israel, this is an acceptable -- if not desirable since a
majority of the children were Muslim -- price to pay
to bring about Armageddon and the Second Coming
of Jesus Christ. Hagee endorsed McCain's presidential
bid, and McCain "was very proud to have Pastor
John Hagee's support."


Robert Weitzel

Safa Abu Saif, a 12-year-old Palestinian girl, was visiting a
friend's apartment when the bullet fired from an Israeli rifle
slammed into her chest, punching a gaping exit wound in her
back. No ambulance could reach her because of the fighting.
Safa died in her father's arms three hours after being shot.

Danielle Shafi, a 5-year-old Israeli girl, was killed by the
bullet fired from a Palestinian rifle as her mother combed
her hair in the child's upstairs bedroom. Drenched in the
blood of her wound, Danielle slowly stopped breathing and
died in her mother's arms minutes after being shot.

According to a United Nation's report, 971 Palestinian and
Israeli children were killed between September 2000 --
the beginning of the second intifada -- and July 2007. Of
those destroyed children, 854 were Palestinian.
The intifada and the dying continue.

Safa and Danielle are two of the children whose lives the
evangelical political action committee, Christians United
for Israel, are willing to sacrifice on the alter of their
fundamentalist eschatology in the hope of bringing about
Armageddon and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Pastor John Hagee, televangelist to 99 million viewers
and pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church
in San Antonio, Texas, established the CUFI in 2005
following the publication of his book, The Jerusalem
Countdown: A Warning to the World.
Hagee envisions
CUFI as the Christian version the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby whose
political clout has a significant influence on U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East.

The late Molly Ivins, a Texas political commentator and
author, described Hagee as a "pre-millennial
dispensationalist, whose theology focuses on selected
apocalyptic passages of the Book of Revelation." In 1998,
Hagee teamed up with Christian filmmakers to produce,
Vanished in the Twinkling of an Eye, a docudrama about
the tribulations following the Rapture.

Despite Pastor Hagee's obvious interest in eschatology,
he insists that CUFI's support for Israel has nothing to do
with end time prophecy. But in an unguarded moment
in the intimate confines of his 50,000 sq. ft. multimedia
chapel, Hagee set the truth free, "The judgment of the
nations is going to happen as soon as Christ returns to earth.
As soon as he sets up his throne on the Temple Mount in
Jerusalem, he's going to rule the world with a rod of iron.
That means he's going to make the ACLU do what he wants
them to ... We will live by the law of god, and no other law."

The problem with Hagee's version of the truth is the fact
that the Temple Mount is Islam's third most sacred site,
upon which sits the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the
Rock, the oldest extant Islamic structure in the world.

According to Judaism, the Mount is where the final Third
Temple will be rebuilt before the coming of the Jewish
Messiah. Unfortunately for CUFI, the Second Coming of
Jesus is on hold until the temple's completion, and that
cannot happen until Islam is destroyed --
Hagee's holy grail.

Predictably then, the good pastor opposes any peace plan to
end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, supports Israel's
persecution and "imprisonment" of 1.5 million Palestinians in
the Gaza Strip, and advocates pre-emptive nuclear strikes
against Iran. John Hagee lives, and CUFI exists, to light the
fires of the Apocalypse using Israel as the match.

To get a candid look at CUFI and its members, journalist
Max Blumenthal took his cameras to the CUFI's
Washington-Israel Summit held last July in the
nation's capital.


Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour from huffpost on Vimeo.

His video, above "Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized
Christians United for Israel Tour" I found it on The Disclosure
here it opens with Blumenthal
cornering disgraced former Republican House Majority
Leader Tom Delay and asking him how important the
Second Coming is in his support of Israel. The "Hammer"
replied, "Obviously, it is what I live for. Really, I hope it
comes tomorrow. Obviously, we need to be connected to
Israel to enjoy the Second Coming of Christ."

Blumenthal mingled with the 4,500 CUFI rank and file
attending the Summit and asked their opinion on
Armageddon and the identity of the Antichrist:

Q. "Are you looking forward to Armageddon?"

A. "I'm looking forward to Armageddon and the
cleansing of the earth."

Q. "Who is the Antichrist?"

A. "He will be a man of peace. So he will be one who has
promoted peace for many years. The one who forces Israel
into a peace treaty with the Arabs is the Beast."

A. "Another reason that we support Israel is that we
have a common enemy, the Muslims. We are fighting
what is behind the Muslim people, which is Satan.
Satan is actually the one who is trying to destroy
the human race."

After asking Pastor Hagee the "wrong" question
during a Summit news conference, Blumenthal and
his crew were escorted out of the building by off-duty
police officers.

John Hagee is not without fawning friends in Washington.
Presidential hopeful John McCain made a campaign stop at
the Summit and admitted to the audience that, "It's very
hard trying to do the Lord's work in the city of Satan ... "
House Minority Whip Roy Blunt followed McCain to the
podium and assured the faithful that "This is a mission,
this is a vision that I believe is a vision for God's time."
Senator Joe Lieberman was there and described Pastor
Hagee as an "Ish Elokim," a man of God.

Never one to be left out of a well-attended Christian
Right convocation, President Bush sent his best wishes,
"I appreciate CUFI members ... for your passion and
dedication to enhancing the relationship between the
United States and Israel. Your efforts set a shining
example for others ... "

Cultivating his friendship with the man who believes the
U.S. will be in Iraq for the next one hundred years,
Pastor Hagee endorsed -- and hugged -- John McCain
for president at a news conference held at the Cornerstone
Church. Senator McCain graciously accepted, saying,
"I'm very honored by Pastor John Hagee's endorsement today,"
When asked about Hagee's extensive writings on Armageddon,
McCain responded that "all I can tell you is that I am very
proud to have Pastor John Hagee's support.''

Considering the above, the following should not
need to be said. Pastor Hagee's right-wing Jewish allies
will do well to consider that after Islam is destroyed and
the Temple rebuilt and Jesus comes and raptures all
"true believers," all non-believers -- including Jews --
will be hunted down and converted or destroyed ...
that is, those few who survived the nuclear holocaust that
was prayed for and schemed for by the "Ish Elokim"
and the CUFI.

In the meanwhile, Palestinian and Israeli children will
continue to die singularly or in small groups by the bullets
and the bombs and the fire send their way on the wings of
CUFI's prayerful machinations.

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Don’t Blame The Inmates Of The Lunatic Asylum

By Alan Hart

Some Israeli and other Jewish opponents of Zionism’s
colonial enterprise have described Israel as a “fascist”
state. I think the more appropriate terminology is lunatic
asylum. But I don’t blame the inmates (the Jewish citizens
of the state) for what’s happening. They are as much the
products of Zionist brainwashing as are the supporters of
Israel right or wrong throughout the mainly Gentile
Judeo-Christian world. I blame the wardens and
management of the asylum
(Israel’s military and political leaders)

Israel’s leaders still believe that by means of brute
force and reducing them to abject poverty, they can
break the will of the Palestinians to continue their
struggle for their rights. The assumption being that,
at a point, and out of total despair, the Palestinians
will be prepared to accept crumbs from Zionism’s
table in the shape of two or three bantustans, or,
better still, will abandon their homeland and seek
a new life in other countries. In my view the
conviction that Zionism will one day succeed in
breaking the Palestinian will to continue the
struggle for an acceptable minimum of justice is the
product of minds which are deluded to the point of
clinical madness.

There is, however, one solid piece of evidence that a
majority of Israeli Jews are not as mad as their leaders.
It’s in the fact that 64% of them have said their
government must hold direct talks with Hamas.
Less than one-third, 28%, opposes such talks.
(Those were the findings of a Ha’aretz-Dialog poll.
It was was conducted, under the supervision of Professor
Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University, before Israel’s
escalation of its confrontation with Hamas in Gaza;
and it could be, because of the international condemnation
of Israel’s massively disproportionate action of the past few
days, that even more than 64% now favour direct talks
with Hamas).

That’s on the one hand. On the other is the fact that Hamas
has long been calling for a ceasefire or truce, which, it has
indicated, could be extended indefinitely. The problem is
that Hamas’s leaders are insisting - they would be as mad
as Israel’s leaders if they were not - that a ceasefire must
be a two-way street. And that means Israel would have to
end its incursions of Gaza and abandon its policy
of targeted assassinations.

Israel’s leaders are not going to do that. Their present
strategy for Gaza is to make life hell for all of its people
in the hope that they will abandon Hamas. And when
that doesn’t happen? Israel will seek to annihiliate
Hamas. I mean competely, not bit by bit.

Question: When is a war crime not a war crime?

Answer: When the perpetrator is the Zionist state of Israel.
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"The War Against Tolerance," By Chris Hedges

The War Against Tolerance

By Chris Hedges

Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani
are the three stooges of the Christian right.
These self-described former Muslim terrorists are
regularly trotted out at Christian colleges-a few days
ago they were at the Air Force Academy-to spew racist
filth about Islam on behalf of groups such as
Focus on the Family. It is a clever tactic.

Curly, Larry and Mo, who all say they are
born-again Christians, engage in hate speech and
assure us it comes from personal experience.
They tell their audiences that the only way to deal
with one-fifth of the world's population is by
converting or eradicating all Muslims.
Their cant is broadcast regularly on Fox News,
including the Bill O'Reilly and Neil Cavuto shows,
as well as on numerous Christian radio and television
programs. Shoebat, who has written a book called
"Why We Want to Kill You," promises in his lectures
to explain the numerous similarities between radical
Muslims and the Nazis, how "Muslim terrorists"
invaded America 30 years ago and how
"perseverance, recruitment and hate" have fueled
attacks by Muslims.

These men are frauds, but this is not the point.
They are part of a dark and frightening war by
the Christian right against tolerance that, in the
moment of another catastrophic terrorist attack on
American soil, would make it acceptable to target
and persecute all Muslims, including the some
6 million Muslims who live in the United States.
These men stoke these irrational fears. They
defend the perpetual war unleashed by the
Bush administration and championed by
Sen. John McCain. McCain frequently
reminds listeners that "the greatest danger
facing the world is Islamic terrorism,"
as does Mike Huckabee, who says that
"Islamofascism" is "the greatest threat this
country [has] ever faced." George W. Bush has,
in the same vein, assured Americans that terrorists
hate us for our freedoms, not, of course, for
anything we have done. Bush described the
"war on terror" as a war against totalitarian
Islamofascism while the Israeli air force was
dropping tens of thousands of pounds of iron
fragmentation bombs up and down Lebanon,
an air campaign that killed 1,300 Lebanese civilians.

The three men tell lurid tales of being recruited as
children into Palestinian terrorist organizations,
murdering hundreds of civilians and blowing up a
bank in Israel. Saleem says that as a child he
infiltrated Israel to plant bombs via a network of
tunnels underneath the Golan Heights, although no
incident of this type was ever reported in Israel.
He claims he is descended from the "grand wazir"
of Islam, a title and a position that do not exist in
the Arab world. They assure audiences that the
Palestinians are interested not in a peaceful
two-state solution but rather the destruction of
Israel, the murder of all Jews and the death of
America. Shoebat claims he first came to the
United States as part of an extremist "sleeper cell."

"These three jokers are as much former Islamic
terrorists as 'Star Trek's' Capt. James T. Kirk was
a real Starship captain," said Mikey Weinstein, the
head of the watchdog group
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation
.
The group has challenged Christian proselytizing
in the military and denounced the visit by the men
to the Air Force Academy.

The speakers include in their talks the superior
virtues of Christianity. Saleem, for example, says
his world "turned upside down when he was
seriously injured in an automobile accident."

"A Christian man tended to Kamal at the accident
scene, making sure he got the medical treatment he
needed," his Web site says. "Kamal's orthopedic
surgeon and physical therapist were also
Christian men whom over a period of several
months ministered the unconditional love of
Jesus Christ to him as he recovered. The love
and sacrificial giving of these men caused Kamal
to cry out to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
acknowledging his need for the Savior. Kamal has
since become a man on a new mission, as an
ambassador for the one true and living God,
the great I Am, Jehovah God of the Bible."

This creeping Christian chauvinism has infected
our political and social discourse. It was behind
the rumor that Barack Obama was a Muslim.
Obama reassured followers
that he was a Christian. It apparently did not
occur to him, or his questioners, that the proper
answer is that there is nothing wrong with being
a Muslim, that persons of great moral probity
and courage arise in all cultures and all religions,
including Islam. Christians have no exclusive lock
on virtue. But this kind of understanding often
provokes indignant rage.

The public denigration of Islam, and by implication all
religious belief systems outside Christianity, is part
of the triumphalism that has distorted the country
since the 9/11 attacks. It makes dialogue with those
outside our "Christian" culture impossible. It implicitly
condemns all who do not think as we think and
believe as we believe as, at best, inferior and usually morally depraved. It blinds us to our own failings. It makes
self-reflection and self-criticism a form of treason.
It reduces the world to a cartoonish vision of us and
them, good and evil. It turns us into children with bombs.

These three con artists are not the problem. There is
enough scum out there to take their place. Rather,
they offer a window into a worldview that is
destroying the United States. It has corrupted the
Republican Party. It has colored the news media.
It has entered into the everyday clichés we use to
explain ourselves to ourselves. It is ignorant and
racist, but it is also deadly. It grossly perverts the
Christian religion. It asks us to kill to purify the Earth.
It leaves us threatened not only by the terrorists
who may come from abroad but the ones who are
rising from within our midst.

Chris Hedges, who graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, is the author of "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America."


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More Money For Israel While Americans Suffer and more Palestinians will die

Are you a Homeless America? Job Less American, do you
or your children need food or even basic health care.
Have things gotten better yet in new Orleans?
No I did not think so!

Here are 2 reports for you: money that could do better
helping Americans who need help! But instead the
American Government rather fund more killing and
the genocide of all Palestinians..to fill their own own
pocketbooks and their fellow corporate whores while
bowing to the Zionist Lobby and other lobbies for Israel
while the Christian Right says that the American
Government should do more for Israel.


the 2 reports below is what I got from 2 websites:

The Bush administration launched its new $30 billion defense aid
to Israel in its proposed 2009 budget.

The $3 trillion budget, released Monday, includes $2.55 billion in
defense assistance for Israel. That will increase in increments until
2013, when it will settle at $3.1 billion a year until 2018.

Israel this year received its final $2.4 billion payment in a $24
billion defense assistance package launched in 1998.

The Bush administration increased the amount partly as
compensation to Israel for a planned $20 billion in U.S. arms
sales to Saudi Arabia and its Arab neighbors.

The administration defends the overall package as necessary
to contain Iranian hegemony and to spur Israel and
moderate Arab nations to support Israeli-Palestinian peace.

US military aid to Israel for
2009: $2.55 billion
Israel may use up to 25% for military equipment and
arms from local defense industries
Ran Dagoni, Washington
Fiscal year 2009, which will begin on October 1st, 2008,
will be the initial year in a ten year plan for US military aid
to Israel under an MOU signed by the countries last year.

According to the new US-Israel aid plan, Israel will receive a
total of $30 billion in military aid over the next ten years
starting in 2009, with the amounts gradually increasing
from $2.55 billion to a ceiling of $3.1 billion as of 2013
and throughout the plan. The provision of the funds is
subject to US congressional approval, as are all budgetary laws.

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Praying for Armageddon -

We want you to recognize that Iran is
a clear and present danger to the United
States of America and Israel. And...
that it's time for our country to consider
a military pre-emptive strike against Iran
if they will not yield to diplomacy," says
Pastor John Hagee, a popular television
preacher and head of Christians United
for Israel (CUFI), an organization that
he founded in February 2006.

That was said, of all places, on the steps of the
Capitol during a Christian Zionist summit in
July 2007. Among some 4,500 listeners, there
were prominent representatives of the U.S.
ruling elite: on the Republican side,
presidential candidate John McCain,
former House Speaker Newt Gingrich,
and former Republican House majority
leader Tom DeLay; among the Democrats,
Senator Joseph Lieberman was in attendance.
Israel was represented at the rally by former
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"When 50 million American evangelicals
unite with 5 million American Jews, you
know it is a match made in heaven," the
preacher said. In response, Sen. Lieberman
said of the preacher: "I would describe
Pastor Hagee with the words the Torah
uses to describe Moses: he is an ‘Eesh Elo
Kim,' a man of God because those words
fit him; and, like Moses he has become the
leader of a mighty multitude in pursuit of
and defense of Israel."

Who are the "Christian Zionists"?
They are a variety of Protestant "fundamentalists"
who interpret current events literally as
prophesies fulfilled, in accordance with
Biblical prophecy, and interpret the prophetic
texts as describing inevitable future events.
They prefer the most literal interpretation,
as proposed back in the 19th century by
Briton John Darby, who said there would
be no Second Coming of Christ until the
Jews returned to the Holy Land.


When Israel was "recreated" in Palestine in
1948, the Darby followers came to the
conclusion that that had happened exactly "
according to the Scripture." Literalists like
Hagee have since continued to replace
historiography with theology. From these
theological "heights," they imagine themselves
to be political strategists and rulers of
destinies in the world: after all, "in accordance
with the Scripture," Abraham's posterity
should possess the entire Holy Land - from
Mesopotamia to Turkey to Egypt.

Ironically, the literalists do notbother to
ask whether the Israelis need such an Israel
in the first place. They - i.e.: Christians
waiting for the Second Coming of Christ in
accordance with the Apocalypse prophesies -
need a great and indivisible Israel. Jesus
returns at the end of the seven years (Tribulation)
to destroy The Antichrist (The Beast) and
his armies at the Battle of Armageddon,
outside of Jerusalem. It is for this battle
that the pastor - dubbed "Texas Taliban"
by some commentators - is urging the U.S.
to prepare.

Needless to say, Good is represented by
Israel and the U.S., and Evil, by all of Israel's
enemies - i.e., Pales­tinians, Arabs, Muslims,
and especially Shiite Iran. "The head of the
beast of radical Islam in the Middle East is
Iran and its fanatical president, Ahmadinejad,
" Hagee intoned. "Ahmadinejad believes if he
starts a world war, the Islamic messiah will
mysteriously appear and produce a global
Islamic theocratic dictatorship. It's 1938
all over again. Iran is Germany. Ahmadinejad
is Hitler and Ahmadinejad, just like Hitler,
is talking about killing the Jews."


According to the pastor, the principal
force of Evil will be Russia, a sponsor of
Muslim terrorists and supplier of nuclear
weapons to Iran. It makes no difference to
the preacher that the Soviet Union was
Hitler's main opponent and was also the
first state to recognize Israel, or that
many Israelis come from Russia or that
modern Russia itself is fighting against
Muslim extremists ("Russia is all over
the Middle East in an antagonistic position
against the United States... Iran's nuclear
weapons have been produced with Russian
scientists. The Islamic Arabs are using the
Roadmap to Peace to accumulate as much
of Israel's territory they can get.")

Whatever the case, the battle will end in a
decisive victory for the forces of Good, and
the theocratic Jewish state with be restored
with the center in Jerusalem, to which all
other kings and tsars will go cap in hand.
Alas, after such a triumph, the pastor runs
into problems: what about the Jews who are
waiting for their Messiah, not Jesus Christ?
According to the pastor, Jews have not as yet
converted to Christianity simply because they
have not seen Jesus Christ. But during His
Second Coming to Jerusalem, they will
finally be able to see Him with their own
eyes, and they will bow to him.

"Thank you for the honor," said Rabbi
Michael Lerner, who was invited by TV host
Bill Moyers to his show to discuss the activity
of Christian Zionists. "First, you want to get
the Jewish people involved in Arma­geddon,"
he said, "and then you confront the winners
with a no-win choice: convert to our faith or
you'll burn in hell." From the rabbi's perspective
(and Rabbi Lerner is also editor of Tikkun, a
Jewish journal of politics, culture and spirituality),
Chris­tian Zionists such as Hagee do a great
disservice to Israel and all Jews.


At this point it turns out that a "holy alliance"
between 50 million American Christians and
5 million American Jews is more of a dream
than reality. In spite of the fact that there
are quite a few Jews among the neo-cons
who started the war in Iraq, the majority
of American Jews vote against Bush.

Even in Israel itself, it is unlikely that many
people would fall for the "holy alliance."
After all, Hagee is even opposed to the
Road Map for Peace and a two-state concept,
favors the continued colonization of the
West Bank, and is against any concessions
being given to the Palestinians.
There are just as many problems with the
50 million Americans. Presumably to
counterbalance the dispute between the
rabbi and the pastor, Moyers invited Dr.
Timothy P. Weber, another evangelist, on the
show. Unlike Hagee, Dr. Weber is a real
historian, the author of "On the Road to
Armageddon: How Evan­gelicals Became Israel's
Best Friend." Although Dr. Weber considers himself
to be an evangelist, he is far from being a Zionist.
According to Dr. Weber, Christian Zionists are not
Christians in the first place, nor do they represent
the majority of Christian evangelists. They
believe in the Second Coming of Christ, but
do not intend to play up to Israel. They simply
follow Christ's teachings, campaigning for
peace and justice.

Dr. Weber pointed out that during the Cold
War era, literalists portrayed the Soviet
Union as northern Gog in confrontation
with American Magog. At that time, Iran
was not even a blip on the biblical
preachers' radar screen, but now they
are trying to fit Iranian President Ahmadinejad's
policy into a biblical scenario.

There is no reason to believe that Christian
Zionists represent the majority of American
Christians, but Hagee, without any doubt,
represents a belligerent trend in U.S. policy,
which has yet to run out of steam. According
to recent Time and CNN polls, one-third of
Americans believed that after 9/11, the
end of the world was near at hand, while
36 percent take biblical prophesies literally.

Apart from religious fanatics like Hagee,
there are also other advocates of a "holy alliance"
in the United States. For example, Daniel Pipes, the son
of the well known Russia expert Richard Pipes, who is a
specialist on the Middle East and a neo-con, said:
"Other than the Israel Defense Forces, America's
Christian Zionists may be the Jewish state's
ultimate strategic asset."

On the other hand, such intellectuals as
Rabbi Lerner and Dr. Weber are very well
aware that the source of America's good will
with respect to Israel is the shared origin of
Christian biblical culture. Therefore, while
challenging the Christian Zionists' right to
be called Christians, they do not condemn
evangelicals in general. They acknowledge
that Islam as one of the three great religions
that originated from ancient Judaic monotheism.
They are concerned that the influence of
fundamentalists and fanatics in all three
religions distorts their spiritual foundations.
When Moyers referred to Ahma­dinejad's
bellicose remarks about Israel and recalled
that some Muslims believe in the return of the
Mahdi, a kind of messianic figure who will turn
the world Islamic, Rabbi Lerner condemned all
fanatics and said:

"The alternative is to create a different world view.
And this is the problem that the United States and
those of us who are liberals or progressives in the
United States and in the Western world have not
been able to articulate an alternative world view.
This is partly because we have become so secular
and no longer understand that there is some
spiritual foundation to the yearnings of people
all over the world for something other than
global capitalism, for something other than
the globalization of selfishness."

Well said. But while sensible people
are creating an alternative world view,
it would probably be a good idea to recall
that the U.S. Constitution has clearly
separated religion from government.
Of course, Pastor Hagee is free to say
whatever he likes in his parish. But
when he does that on the steps of the
Capitol with the obvious goal of
influencing U.S. policy, he
violates not only the law,
but the very spirit of the
American Constitution.


By Vladislav Krasnov, president,
the Russian American Goodwill Associates (RAGA)
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