Christian Zionist nutjob addresses AIPAC conference
Entwined flags
Vice President Cheney threatens Iran at the 2006 event
Here is how critical the US Israel lobby sees the Christian Zionists and their effect on Congress. According to Bruce Wilson at the Talk to Action website:
Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United For Israel, a new and nominally “pro-Israel” American national political lobbying group, has built a career on aggressive support for hard right to fringe right Israeli politics and is now making inroads towards convincing the mainstream American Jewish community that he and CUFI are the best tactical allies Jews and Israel can expect to find. This Sunday, March 11th, Pastor John Hagee will make an evening address at a the American-Israel lobby AIPAC’s star-studded yearly convention which AIPAC’s website says may be attended by a substantial fraction of the US Congress and Senate.
To me, this guy, Hagee, sounds like an ultra-fringe nutcase:
At the center of it all is Pastor John Hagee, a popular televangelist who leads the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. While Hagee has long prophesized about the end times, he ratcheted up his rhetoric this year with the publication of his book, “Jerusalem Countdown,” in which he argues that a confrontation with Iran is a necessary precondition for Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ. In the best-selling book, Hagee insists that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West. Shortly after the book’s publication, he launched Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which, as the Christian version of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he said would cause “a political earthquake.”
Christ, 18,000-member Cornerstone Church?? “Precondition for Armageddon”????
Furthermore, the Israel lobby seems to be willing to overlook Hagee’s ties to the antisemitic past, associated with Klan, neo-Nazi, and John Birch beliefs, including screeds where he
“blames the Holocaust on Jews themselves and states that Nazi persecution of Jews was God’s way of driving Jews to Israel, seems to blame Jews for the death of Jesus Christ, holds that Jews cannot get into heaven, calls liberal Jews “poisoned” and “spiritually blind”, believes that the preemptive nuclear attack on Iran that he advocates will lead to a Mideast conflict that will kill most Jews in Israel and perhaps also lead to the Nuclear destruction of the East and West coasts of the United States of America”
I guess the AIPACers are satisfied that Hagee’s furies are sufficiently directed towards Muslims. Makes no sense considering what he has written, given that the Christian Zionist kooks merely see Israel as a temporary ally in the wars preceeding Armageddon, and that unconverted Jews will be dispatched.
Despite the appeal to the fringes, plenty of political luminaries–Democrat and Republican–will join Hagee on the AIPAC stage, a literal Who’s Who of Washington,
Featured speakers will include Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican Leader John Boehner - as well as Vice President Dick Cheney and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni…
Last year, Vice President Cheney used the event to threaten Iran with “meaningful consequences.” If that sounds familiar, it is just slightly off of the language inserted in UN Security Council Resolution 1441 (November 2002), that promised Iraq “serious consequences.” That came true with a vengeance. What bellicose rumblings will Cheney issue this year? Whatever, they seem sure to be compatible with Hagee’s. Expect that no Democrat either will stray from the party line.
March 12th, 2007 at 08:35
The crazy stuff garnered up from the Book of Daniel, Book of Revelations, etc., has been dogging Western culture for over 2,000 years. It is impossible to stop, as it naturally emerges from the desire to blame one’s shortcomings upon another, and to see “salvation” as soon as that other is destroyed. It has always been is a ready means of making money and political capital. Neither the nutjobs nor the Zionists are at all adverse to using this fantasy to advance their interests (money and power). Given that an I.Q. of 106 or under applies to about 2/3rd of the world, they can’t lose. Best thing to do is to keep clear of these nuts, Evangelical Christians, “Promised Land” Zionists, et. al., and find a cozy place to read interesting books. Ah, and keep a gun handy in case they decide to “convert” you.
March 12th, 2007 at 09:21
If they come to the door, I can always shoo them away without the gun. But there is a problem–the movement this Hagee represents has the ears of those in power, Democrat and Republican alike. He commands mega-churches with membership and political power that the much-move-diffuse peace movement would love to have. They are nuts, I believe, but unfortunately they can’t be kept clear of.