Jews Say, Stay Away From Christian Zionist Preacher John Hagee
By Thomas Williamson
3131 S. Archer Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60608
Jewish and Christian observers have watched with puzzlement
over the last year, as the prominent San Antonio charismatic preacher
John Hagee has made support for war with Iran, ostensibly for
the purpose of helping Israel, a major emphasis of his ministry.
At the latest convention of the America-Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC), Hagee preached a fiery message calling for
an attack on Iran, and assuring Israel of passionate support from
50,000,000 Christian Zionists in America. (This is down from the
figure of 70,000,000 Christian Zionists cited by Hagee's sidekick
Jerry Falwell in recent years. Did 20,000,000 Christian Zionists
see the light and leave that movement?)
Although Hagee claims that he is motivated by his love for
the nation of Israel when he calls for war with Iran, he appears
to be under the influence of a more sinister ideology - the Armageddon
Theology, which teaches that two-thirds of all the Jews inevitably
must be killed as part of the process of Christ's Second Coming.
Jews are increasingly becoming more and more aware of Hagee's
yearning to foment devastating battles in the Middle East that
would result in the deaths of millions of Jews. Jews are increasingly
distancing themselves from Hagee's Armageddonist bandwagon and
are actively warning other Jews to stay clear of him.
A recent article in the Jewish Journal, "Hagee's Speech
Backing Israel Alarms Some," states, "Christian Zionists
like Hagee are increasingly trying to affect U.S. Mideast policy.
The biblical perspective shaping that activism offers only more
war and new holocausts for the Jews, not the peace that Israelis
crave. . . .
"To fellow Christians, the focus is on biblical prophecy
about new and horrific wars, death on an unimaginable scale and
a peace that can come only with the Second Coming of Jesus.'
. . .
"Hagee has publicly called for pre-emptive attacks on
Iran and linked that to Bible prophecy, promising that the
greatest war the world has ever seen will soon envelop Israel
and Jerusalem.' How, exactly, is that good for the Jews?
"Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, co-founder of Jews on First,
a web site that opposes Christian-right church-state policies,
said that Hagee's push for an attack on Iran is not based
on a logically constructed policy but on cherry-picked biblical
verses. And it is only the first step to the end-times scenario
that Hagee enthusiastically predicts will engulf Israel in a devastating
war.'"
Cantor Steve Puzarne of Los Angeles, California, in an article
posted on the Jews on First web site, says, "Gershom Gorenberg,
a leading Israeli expert on Christian Zionism, recently explained
how Christian Zionists' positions on Israel and the Middle East
(Hagee advocates a U.S. attack on Iran) place them at the
far edge of the radical right within Israeli politics.' . . .
"Christian Zionism focuses on end times' scenarios
that involve ingathering' all the world's Jews in Israel
against a backdrop of major international warfare. . . .
"None of these advocates, be they Christian Zionists
or American Jews, will be directly or mortally impacted as apocalyptic
visions, buttressed by disciplined and influential Capitol Hill
lobbying, ignite the entire Middle East into a killing field reserved
for Muslim and Israeli Jew. And how clever indeed. For little
more than the cost of a rubber chicken dinner and a fat check,
Hagee and company have successfully turned some in our leadership
into quiescent co-conspirators in their passion play, as they
seek to transform our Israeli brothers and sisters into front
line troops clearing the way for the glorious realization of bizarre
and homicidal visions (the heavenly benefits of which neither
Jew nor Muslim can realize)."
The word is getting out among Jews. The real agenda of John Hagee
is not to help Jews or to help Israel, but to foment wars that
are expected to result in the death of millions of Jews. If the
wars supported by Hagee and his fellow warmongering televangelists
should result in mass immolation of the Jewish people, they are
not going to say, "Oops, we sure didn't expect that to happen."
Mass destruction of the Jews is exactly what they expect to happen.
"Left Behind" novelist Tim LaHaye says, "Two thirds
(two parts)' of the Jewish people in the land will perish
during the tribulation period."
Jerry Falwell, a supporter of Hagee's lobbying pressure group
"Christians United For Israel" (CUFI), is on record
as saying, "There will be one last skirmish and then God
will dispose of this Cosmos. . . . Millions of Jews will be slaughtered
at this time but a remnant will escape."
If millions of Jews are indeed killed as a result of the wars
that Hagee, Falwell, LaHaye and their ilk are so enthusiastically
lobbying for in the Middle East, there is no way that they will
be able to say, "Wow, we never imagined that things would
go wrong like this. We were only trying to help the Jews!"
No, they fully expect millions of Jews to be killed as a result
of their Armageddonist crusade, and a lot of Jews are not happy
about this at all.
An anonymous Jewish poster on the Jews on First web site says,
"During this summer's conflict in Israel and Lebanon [2006]
we witnessed Christian fundamentalists prodding the West's military
engagement of Islamist terrorists in Lebanon, the Occupied Territories,
Syria, and Iran. Why was this Christian support so manifest?
"In the July 27 edition of the Wall Street Journal, there
appears an article that CUFI not only links to, but also places
their logo above. In this article, CUFI and similar organizations
are described as having an evangelical political philosophy
[that] is rooted in the biblical prophecies and a belief that
Israel's struggles signal a prelude to Armageddon.'
"They believe that encouraging this inevitable' course
of history would hasten their anticipated Second Coming.'
It would be incredible for us to lend support to a community of
people who don't mind if the world explodes. That they act robustly
to influence our nation's foreign policy because of the belief
that they will achieve paradise while we [Jews] disintegrate into
oblivion is reason alone to deny them any support."