I'm confused. Signing a petition calling for what the administration is already in the process of doing accomplishes what again?

Posted by: Cads | January 10, 2008 12:47 PM

I find it difficult to believe that our "war president" now wants to find a peaceful settlement between Palestinians and Israel after 8 years of fostering war and discord in the Middle East. Can it be that he is desperate to build a legacy of something other than foreign relations disasters and domestic incompetence? My wife and I pray that, whatever Bush's motives, a peaceful resolution occurs, before the neo-cons and those alleged Christians who preach war at every turn, finally get their wish!

Pray for Peace!

Posted by: Doug & Jan in CO | January 10, 2008 3:21 PM

Hagee's Zion's Zealots

On November 6, 2007, I attended in order to report of the Miami CUFI conference.

I am still nauseous when ever I think about it.

The James L. Knight Center was packed to the rafters with John Hagee's tribe of Christian Zionists and south Florida's right wing Jewish community. Zion's Fire Banners, dancers, singers and a band whipped the crowd into a frenzy of spinning, jumping, clapping, twirling and moved the rotund Hagee to link arms with men in skull caps and dance the Hora-not to Hava Nagila, but to repeated choruses of:

Shout for joy and victory! Bat Yerushalyim

From one end of the stage to the other, the largest American and Israeli flags I have ever seen were draped side by side and by the end of the evening I imagined every star on the red-white-and blue had morphed into the Star of David.

-You can view this photo on WAWA's homepage
http://www.wearewideawake.org/ -

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Joe Martinez pointed to the flags and exclaimed: "Isn't that beautiful up there together? I get goose bumps! All nations have been created by an act of man, except Israel was created by an act of God."

Rabbi Freedman delivered the Invocation, "We are all friends of the only democracy in the Middle East."

I immediately recalled what American Israeli, Jeff Halper, the Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD/Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions told me during one of my five journeys to Jerusalem:

"Israel is a not a democracy but is an Ethnocracy, meaning a country run and controlled by a national group with some democratic elements but set up with Jews in control and structured to keep them in control.”

Rabbi Freedman continued on, "From Mount Sinai to Mount Zion to Mount Vernon we are all Zionists! Israel is second to America in how many immigrants we have absorbed."

Immigrant absorption in Israel comes with perks and is called Aliyah, ["go up"] and is a fundamental concept of Zionism enshrined in Israel's Law of Return, which permits any Jew from any where in the world the legal right to government assisted immigration and settlement in Israel, automatic Israeli citizenship, unemployment benefits, free medical, and subsidized housing. Young adult immigrants receive free room, utilities, and three meals a day for the first five months and 100 percent of their tuition is paid by the government.

Hagee's mastery of manipulating the fears of his audience garnered him a standing ovation as the shofars blew, "Israel was re-born by an act of God and Israel lives! The Jews have suffered great persecution and survived slavery and the Final Solution! God Jehovah will bury Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran! The flag of Israel will fly over the undivided Jerusalem and be the praise of all the earth! It's 1938 again and the new Hitler is Ahmadinejad! Radical Islamisicts are threatening to develop nuclear weapons in order to destroy Israel and then the USA! But we are indivisible and we are both here forever!"

The oft repeated comment ascribed to President Ahmadinejad, that "Israel must be wiped off the map," was addressed by Virginia Tilley, Professor of political science who wrote:

"In his October 2005 speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad never used the word "map" or the term "wiped off". According to Farsi-language experts like Juan Cole and even right-wing services like MEMRI, what he actually said was "this regime that is occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."

"In this speech to an annual anti-Zionist conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad was being prophetic, not threatening. He was citing Imam Khomeini, who said this line in the 1980s (a period when Israel was actually selling arms to Iran, so apparently it was not viewed as so ghastly then). Mr. Ahmadinejad had just reminded his audience that the Shah's regime, the Soviet Union, and Saddam Hussein had all seemed enormously powerful and immovable, yet the first two had vanished almost beyond recall and the third now languished in prison. So, too, the "occupying regime" in Jerusalem would someday be gone. His message was, in essence, "This too shall pass."

Being a Christian of the Beatitudes-sticking to what Jesus actually taught and not worshiping any state or nation, I hope that the zeal of particular Christians for the state of Israel will also pass and because of their love for the Jewish people, I have hope they will have ears to hear the wisdom of the American Jewish progressive political and spiritual community and organization, Tikkun.

Tikkun is Hebrew for mend, repair and transform the world.

Tikkun researched to discover that there are three distinct elements energizing the Christian Zionists:

1. A strong commitment to conservative and ultra-nationalist American politics (so strong, I believe, that if the U.S. were to decide to break with Israel, this part of the Christian Zionist leadership would go along with that and drop its defense of Israeli policies).

2. Dispensationalist religious commitments that lead many of the Christian Zionists to yearn for a cataclysmic “end of history” eschatological war in the Middle East that will precipitate the second coming of Jesus and the Rapture in which all true Christians will go to heaven and all Jews who have not yet converted to Christianity will burn in hell for eternity.

3. A widespread understanding among many Christians that atonement and repentance is needed for 1700 years of murder, rape, and oppression of Jews that was frequently generated by the Church (though, of course, the Evangelicals do not recognize that church as their church). In this category are many Christian Zionists who genuinely feel terrible about what has happened to the Jews and genuinely want to help the Jewish people. Their philo-Semitism is real and sincere. [Rabbi Lerner, Tikkun Magazine page 9, Nov/Dec. 2007]

But in Miami the other night, multitudes of misled and misinformed Christian's celebrated military occupation, violence, power and control and ignored the gospel Jesus preached: "It is the peacemakers who shall be called the children of God." –Matthew 5:9

Hagee repeatedly cited that all worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but neglected to mention that the first mention of Israel is in Genesis 32:22, when Jacob was renamed Israel for having wrestled and struggled with the Divine.

Hagee threw out the names of all the Hebrew prophets, but not the fact that God raised up prophets to speak truth to power and arrogance and to remind people of what God desires:

"What does God require? He has told you o'man!
Be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord." -Micah 6:8

God also raised up prophets to remind them they cannot know the mind of the Mystery of the Universe, for "His thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord."- Isaiah 55:8

God raised up prophets to admonish the "stiff necked people" [Exodus 34:9, Proverbs 29:1] and that "My people are fools, they do not know me! They are skilled in doing evil, they know not how to do good."-Jeremiah 4:22

Hagee invoked the "Torah Way" but neglected what the Torah commands:

"From Moses to Jeremiah and Isaiah, the Prophets taught...that the Jewish claim on the land of Israel was totally contingent on the moral and spiritual life of the Jews who lived there, and that the land would, as the Torah tells us, 'vomit you out' if people did not live according to the highest moral vision of Torah. Over and over again, the Torah repeated its most frequently stated mitzvah [command]:

"When you enter your land, do not oppress the stranger; the other, the one who is an outsider of your society, the powerless one and then not only 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself' but also 'you shall love the other.'" [Rabbi Lerner, TIKKUN Magazine, page 35, Sept./Oct. 2007 ]

Posted by: eileen fleming | January 10, 2008 3:35 PM

Seriously, I travel is some pretty conservative Christians circles and no one I know has ever mentioned this guy or subscribes to way of thinking. I wouldn't know who he is except for reading this blog. Maybe I'm in the wrong conservative Christian circles. He's made out to be THE bogeyman whenever Israel is discussed on this blog. We need to make conservative Christians look extreme; let's drag out Hagee again.

Posted by: Ross | January 10, 2008 3:21 PM

The circles you run in must be pretty sheltered- his TV Program is watched everywhere by several people I know from very divergent Church backgrounds 0.o

Posted by: Kevin Wayne | January 10, 2008 8:17 PM

I found the letter to be timid and virtually meaningless. Ariel Sharon could have written it.
Condileeza justified Israel's bloodthirsty attack on Lebanon. To pretend there is a real effort for Peace is foolish naivete. America is clearly on record to support Israel's apartheid dominion. The theft and invasion of Palestinian land continues unabated. If we really want Israel to listen to a fair peace plan, perhaps we should stop paying them to ignore us.

Posted by: jonabark | January 10, 2008 11:30 PM

Just wondering Jonabark, what is it in particular that causes you to love and respect Hamas so much? Could it be their love of jihad, their admiration for the United States, their call for the destruction of Israel, or maybe it's just that you're fond of suicide bombers?

Posted by: Cads | January 11, 2008 4:19 AM

Cads

You need to remember that for us, Hamas is the ugly face of extremists but for many poor Palistinians, Hamas is the only organisation providing basic humanitarian relief, like doctors and medical clinics, schools, food supplies, etc.

How can we stand back and criticise them for supporting the only organisation that will come out and bring a doctor to their door, particularly when our major contribution seems to be sending more F16s over there?

There is a military extremist body, humanitarian body and political body all sharing the name Hamas. It might be the easy solution to just lump them all together and outlaw the lot, but then easy solutions don't seem to have had a lot of success over there.

Posted by: ASL | January 11, 2008 8:41 AM

"The exclusion of the majority Palestinian party means no agreement could possibly be considered legitimate." - Jonabark

Don, I guess I get frustrated with those critical of any peace effort simply because it doesn't include Hamas. I could turn Jonabark's statement around and say that no agreement is even possible, much less legitimate, with such an organization, because of their failure to even consider compromise.

Posted by: Cads | January 11, 2008 12:15 PM

"Satan hates
the Jews because they are God's Chosen People, and
he hates the land because that is where redemption
was accomplished, and his defeat was secured."

No, fool, Jews are the spawn of Satan, and in tandem with pre-Adamic races of mud people are trying to destroy the true Jews, the white people of Northern European extraction.

Posted by: Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar | January 11, 2008 1:04 PM

Anyone who wishes to have a deeper understanding the Palestinian conflict could Google any of the following:Norman Finkelstein, Uri Avnery, Lenni Brenner,If Americans Only Knew.
There is also a sect of Orthodox Jews,whose name escapes me, that claims that Zionism is a violation of Jewish scripture, and that the movement so infuriated God that he punished the Jews with the Holocaust. They call for a one-state solution governed by Palestinians, and also for Israelis to pay reparations to the displaced Arabs.Members of this group have recently had extensive dialogue with Iranian leaders to ease tensions and to foster goodwill.

Posted by: El Petey | January 11, 2008 3:36 PM

Hamas gained the majority of votes of Palestinians. I don't like Bush or support his war crimes but he is the elected president and negotiates treaties etc. You can't have democracy if you deny the legitimacy of the electoral representatives and you cannot predict a party's willingness to negotiate if you do not talk with them.

Posted by: jonabark | January 11, 2008 4:22 PM

"But I really, really
hope you are kidding (though it's certainly not something I would be kidding about)."

Don, if that indeed is your real name. You clearly need to educate yourself on British-Israelism and Christian Identity. Read about Eve and her union with the Satanic serpent in the Garden of Eden. Who was Cain's wife, if not a member of a pre-Adamic wife?

Dupes like John G. simply further Satan's agenda.

Posted by: Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar | January 11, 2008 5:07 PM

Eve had no union w/ the serpent Jeffrey. The only wife that slept w/ demons was Lilith. Keep your foolish and ridiculous racism to yourself. Maybe you should study the migration periods of early Bronze age and ice age peoples to see that Northern European peoples had nothing to do w/ Judaism.

p

Posted by: payshun | January 11, 2008 11:06 PM

John,

In case you have not noticed Jeffery called some people "mud." That's racist. Oh and John I wish you had read the earlier parts of the chapter. Paul is not talking about saving all of Israel, that's a hope. He's very practical and understands that only some will be saved.

Romans 11:14
"14if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them."

From beginning to end God spanked the Jews. How many massacres, judgements, destructions has God unleashed on his chosen people? How many centuries have they spent in exile because they would not obey? The idea that God only favors Israel is ridiculous and unbiblical. God wants to use Israel as a blessing to the world. As usual Israel doesn't fully want that. Not only that but this nation state of Israel is secular and not of the Davidic line. So your arguments are mute.

Actually I was not trying to prove a point, I was trying to make sense of his. Funny thing is that most of the Jews during the time of Jesus believed in a lot of mythology, namely the book of Enoch that's why there's a very curious passage in Peter about angels being banished, Jude w/ Michael disputing Satan for Moses' body... So if mythology is in scripture than guess what all of it is valid to prove a point or to understand someone else's.

p

Posted by: payshun | January 12, 2008 10:46 AM

John G. wrote:
Jeffrey and Payshun, do you engage in uninformed rantings and ad hominem attacks face to face with people you disagree with?

Payshun is correct. is defined as a personal attack on the arguer's character. In this case, Payshun identified the ideology that Jeffrey articulated as racist. This ideology does have a name, which John gave us: British Israelism and Christian Identity are racist ideologies by definition.

Oh, and John, Payshun brought up the Lilith legend not to prove a point, but simply to identify the real source of Jeffrey's 'spawn of Satan' notion.

I won't take up your theology, except to say that it's erroneous to claim that the reference in Romans can only refer to a nation-state, or to claim that the modern nation-state of Israel is in any way identifiable with the Biblical nation of Israel. It's more in line with New Testament thinking, both I believe and the Christian Church at large has generally believed, to identify "Israel" with the Church of Jesus Christ, made up as it is of both Jews and Gentiles from all nations.

The Palestinians have at least as much claim to the land as the Jewish nation-state. And don't you think our brothers and sisters, the Christian Palestinians, deserve our support?

Peace,

Posted by: Don | January 12, 2008 12:20 PM

(Nor did Adam have an earlier wife named Lilith.
Cite Scripture, not mythology, if you want to
prove a point!) John G.

I'm thinking that Mr. Ogbar is probably part of a rather large contingent of people who would equate Scripture with mythology.

Posted by: babble on | January 12, 2008 6:56 PM

What part of FAITH seems to elude you "Christian" people? Bush, Olmert, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, HAMAS leader Mahmoud Al-Zahhar, Ahmadinejad, John Hagee, Orthadox Jews, Islamist terrorist Muslims, etc. HAVE NO CONTROL OVER PEACE IN THE MIDLE EAST, PERIOD!

1 Why are the nations so angry?
Why do they waste their time with futile plans?
2 The kings of the earth prepare for battle;
the rulers plot together
against the Lord
and against his anointed one.
3 “Let us break their chains,” they cry,
“and free ourselves from slavery to God.”
4 But the one who rules in heaven laughs.
The Lord scoffs at them.
5 Then in anger he rebukes them,
terrifying them with his fierce fury.
6 For the Lord declares, “I have placed
chosen king on the throne in Jerusalem,
on my holy mountain.”
7 The king proclaims the Lord’s decree:
“The Lord said to me, ‘You are my son.
Today I have become your Father.
8 Only ask, and I will give you the nations as
your inheritance, the whole earth as your
possession.
9 You will break them with an iron rod
and smash them like clay pots.’”
10 Now then, you kings, act wisely!
Be warned, you rulers of the earth!
11 Serve the Lord with reverent fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
12 Submit to God’s royal son, or he will become
angry, and you will be destroyed in the midst of
all your activities—
for his anger flares up in an instant.
But what joy for all who take refuge in him!

Psalm 2

Posted by: Mark | January 13, 2008 12:23 AM

Mark, in addition to the fact that you don't make your point very clear, you are sort of screaming at us. And you are not going to win us as an audience by doing that.

Furthermore, calling us "you 'Christian' people," with "Christian" in quotes, tells us that you are presuming some things about our faith, or lack thereof. Be careful about judging the faith of your fellow believers!

Peace,

Posted by: Don | January 13, 2008 6:21 AM

Susan, a Jew who believes in Jeshua is still a Jew.
I know several. Do you really belive "Jewish" is
defined by what one DOESN"T believe? But I would
agree with you, I think, that the word "convert" has a bad connotation. Everyone, Jew and Gentile, is invited to follow Jesus. There is nothing wrong with being Jewish, so the word "convert" is rather misleading.

Posted by: witness for peace | January 13, 2008 8:51 PM

What a lot of outright antisemitism has appeared in these comments. Christian cranks are not the fault of Jews you know.

And Hamas only exist for one reason and only have one policy so apologising for their racism goes against for movement amongst Palarabs away from their hate-filled rejectionism.

Whether you call yourself a Christian does not mean you forgive the sin or give succour to haters.

Posted by: Godfearer | January 14, 2008 12:11 PM

Regarding the dispensationalist beliefs of many: God is Sovereign, and nothing we say or do will either hasten His return or delay it. So, in the meantime, if we are to fulfil Jesus' example and admonitions, and since we don't know when He will return, we must work for a just and lasting peace.

Whether Hamas is the "legitimate" power among Palestinians, they are a power. And Fatah was also a terrorist organization in its beginning. But how can there be peace if a major movement such as Hamas refuses to stop making war? I do not minimize all the harm Hamas and Fatah and the other militant movements have done; yet former terrorists have on occasion given up weapons. Look at Muammar Khadafi of Libya.

For these reasons, I feel that we must dialogue with our enemies, convincing them that the best way to secure the peace of their people is for them to lay down their weapons. God will set up His kingdom--indeed, in Scriptural terms, He has already done so! But till His return, let us all do His bidding and work and pray for "the increase of His government, and of peace..." (Isaiah 9:7)

Posted by: jochanaan | January 14, 2008 3:05 PM