Gary Bauer's Focus is the Harper Government's Vision

I Burned my Bra For This? REAL Women of Canada and the Men Behind Them

Another soldier in the war against American women, who helped to the launch a similar war against Canadian women, is Gary Bauer.

Bauer was with the Moral Majority/Religious Right political movement, that helped to run Ronald Reagan's campaign for President. As reward, he was appointed to the Education Department, as the "family policy" czar, and his first order of business was to "usurp the feminists" (1).

With that accomplished, the Department of Education, then directed the effort to crown the fathers. As Susan Faludi said, "If the "pro-family" movement was "pro" anything, it was paternal power". The same has been said of REAL Women of Canada. (2)

To many, the creation of a "family policy" office would suggest an office committed to helping families with things like financial aid, and medical or legal assistance, but that was not the case. Instead they churned out lectures on how the American family should "behave".

And in a further attack against the Civil Rights movement, Bauer told civil-rights leaders: "The values taught on the `Cosby' show would do more to help low-income and minority children than a bevy of new federal programs. . . . a lot of research indicates that values are much more important, say, than the level of welfare payments."

Not everyone could accomplish what the Huxtables accomplished, with a doctor father and lawyer mother, and that includes most white families. However, the Religious Right's attitude on racial issues has not changed since Reagan's time, as witnessed by their latest offspring, the FAMILY LEADER, and their suggestion that slavery was good for the black family.

However, women and blacks were not the only targets of Bauer's office"

[In 1986] President Reagan asked the surgeon general [C. Everett Koop] to prepare a report on AIDS as the United States confirmed its ten-thousandth case. Leaders of the evangelical movement did not want Koop to write the report, nor did senior White House staffers ..... Dr. Koop related to me, "Gary Bauer was my nemesis in Washington because he kept me from the president. He kept me from the cabinet and he set up a wall of enmity between me and most of the people that surrounded Reagan because he believed that anybody who had AIDS ought to die with it. That was God's punishment for them. (3)

Gary and Carol Bauer: Your Typical American Family

Bauer's office promoted the nuclear family, as laid out in a fifty-two-page diatribe, that senator Daniel P. Moynihan, referred to as "less a policy statement than a tantrum."

"The Family: Preserving America's Future" opens with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt: "If the mother does not do her duty, there will either be no next generation, or a next generation that is worse than none at all." The pages were filled with attacks on "women who work, women who use day care, women who divorce", and "women who have babies out of wedlock".

His "recommendations" to save the family included a list of punishments for girls and mothers: "bar young single mothers from public housing; revive old divorce laws to make it harder for women to break the wedding bonds; deny contraceptives to young women". Mothers who stay home, he suggested, should get tax breaks; "the more babies, the more credits".

With such strong opinions you would think that Bauer and his wife Carole, were living this desired family life. But they weren't.

It comes then as a bit of a surprise to learn that Bauer has subjected his own children to this leftist institution—for nine years. (Bauer called daycares "Marxist")

He can explain it, he says. His use of day care was "different" and "better" because he placed his children in "home-based" day care—that is, an unlicensed center run out of a woman's living room. (It's unclear how this is better: a national review of child abuse statistics at day care centers finds that the most incidents of abuse have occurred at such unlicensed sites.) At any rate, Bauer says, a bit defensively, it's not like his kids went directly from the maternity ward to the day care nursery. His wife, Carol, waited "at least three, four months" before she returned to work. (1)

However, wife Carol remembers it differently:

"Actually, I went back to work six weeks after Elyse was born," says his wife ... At the time of her daughter Elyse's birth in 1977, Carol Bauer explains, she was a top assistant to Congresswoman Margaret Heckler; she couldn't just quit.

A lack of federal assistance programs for mothers also played a role in her decision: "There's no set leave policy on the Hill," she points out. Financial considerations entered into it, too: "We had bought a house and we had a mortgage." And then there was that other impulse that she just couldn't seem to squelch: "It wasn't just economics. I enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of the work. I loved work." She laughs. "I mean, when I had Elyse, I literally took my work with me. After I got out of the hospital, I was working the next day at home."

For years, at eight o'clock every morning, the Bauers dropped off Elyse, and eventually their second daughter, Sarah, at day care, put in a full day of work, and then picked up the girls on the way home, usually after six o'clock. The children spent so much time at day care, in fact, Carol Bauer says, that when it came time for Elyse to enter kindergarten, they enrolled her in the school in the center's neighborhood rather than their own. How did the girls feel about day care? "Oh, fine," Carol Bauer says. "They were very happy there. For them it was normal."(1)

Like Beverly Lehaye, one of the founders of REAL Women's inspiration: 'Concerned Women for America', Carol Bauer only felt fulfilled when she was working outside the home. When she finally did drop out of the workforce, Bauer found "nesting" difficult, and was only happy when she spent most waking hours doing volunteer work.

Oh, and that "family values" man, Gary Bauer.

He was alleged to have had an affair with a 26-year-old staffer (deputy campaign manager Melissa McClard), prompting nine members of his staff to quit. He denied that it was an affair, but Charles Jarvis, Bauer's campaign manager, warned Bauer several times "in the clearest possible terms" that he was creating "the appearance of impropriety" by spending "hours and hours and hours behind closed doors with a young single woman."

Canada's "family values" man, Vic Toews, lost his deniability rights, when it was revealed that he had fathered a child with a young conservative staffer, breaking up his 30 years plus marriage.

From Women's Affairs to Foreign Affairs

"For Harper, the courtship of the Christian right is unlikely to prove an electoral one-night stand. Three years ago, in a speech to the annual Conservative think-fest, Civitas, he outlined plans for a broad new party coalition that would ensure a lasting hold on power. The only route, he argued, was to focus not on the tired wish list of economic conservatives or “neo-cons,” as they’d become known, but on what he called “theo-cons”—those social conservatives who care passionately about hot-button issues that turn on family, crime, and defence.

"Even foreign policy had become a theo-con issue, he pointed out, driven by moral and religious convictions. “The truth of the matter is that the real agenda and the defining issues have shifted from economic issues to social values,” he said, “so conservatives must do the same.

"Arguing that the party had to come up with tough, principled stands on everything from parents’ right to spank their children to putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments ... " (4)

Gary Bauer continues to work the circuit of anti-feminist, anti-gay conferences, where REAL Women of Canada make regular appearances.

REAL also promotes Bauer's new group: American Values, in his attack on "leftie" judges.

Bauer is associated with Focus on the Family, a group that conservative MPs, Rob Anders and Maurice Vellacott belong to, and who helped Stephen Harper get elected in 2006, on his "anti-same-sex marriage" platform.

But the most alarming activities for Bauer, and indeed most of the Religious Right, is their dramatic shift to foreign policy.

Bauer is a member of the Project for the New American Century, that included neoconservatives like Steve Forbes, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle and William Kristol. This group helped to draft the Bush Doctrine.

They have been critical of Obama's decision not to send ground troops to Libya, instead following the UN Resolution, which does not support a "regime change".

The Harper Doctrine has no such limitations, and in fact is very specific that only a regime change will do.

However, even more alarming is Bauer's new pet project: Emergency Committee for Israel's Leadership, an aggressive extension of Christians United for Israel, who support extended military engagement in the Middle East.

Jim Flaherty's pal, Charles McVety, heads up the Canadian chapter.

This group, like most in the movement, are Apocalyptic.

So what does it mean when they not only provide foot soldiers for Harper's war on women, but dictate his foreign policy? Or what Harper himself calls 'putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments'.

Yet another reason why the media has to start paying attention.

Drop the 'Tory' nonsense, and report from the Neoconservative/Religious Right/Tea Party reality.

Sources:

1. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, By Susan Faludi, Crown publishing, 1991, ISBN: 0-385-42507-4, Pg. 263-267

2. "R.E.A.L. Women, Anti-feminism and the Welfare State, By Lorna Erwin, Resources for Feminist Research, 1988

3. Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, By D. Michael Lindsay, Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-19-532666-6

4. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada's religious right, By Marci McDonald, The Walrus, October 2006

If Israel Never Has to be Accountable She Will Remain Forever a Petulant Child

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Major Paeta Hess-Von Kruedener was serving as a United Nations Military Observer stationed at the UN Patrol Base in Khiam South Lebanon. On the evening of July 25th 2006, at approximately 7:30 p.m., he and three other UN Military Observers were killed when their patrol base was struck by an Israeli bomb.

An official inquiry determined that it was a "tragic accident".

He was presented with a posthumous award and all was forgotten.

And yet Kruedener's widow tells a different story.

The wife of a Canadian soldier missing and presumed dead in an Israeli air strike on a United Nations observation post in southern Lebanon says she believes the attack was intentional. Cynthia Hess-von Kruedener, wife of a missing Canadian UN observer believed killed this week in Lebanon, speaks yesterday at Canadian Forces Base Kingston. Accompanied by her son, Jonah Rosson, Hess-von Kruedener said she believes the Israeli attack on a UN post, which killed at least three, was intentional. Cynthia Hess-von Kruedener made the allegation yesterday when she spoke to reporters at Canadian Forces Base Kingston.

"Why were they firing on that base?" Hess-von Kruedener demanded to know. "That wasn't the only day they were firing on that base. My information from (her husband) is weeks upon weeks they've been firing on them. "In my opinion, those were precision-guided missiles, then that was intentional," she said. (1)

Weeks upon weeks?

According to the official report: At the time of the incident Israel and Hezbollah were involved in an armed conflict, which began on 12 July 2006 with the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and quickly expanded into a large-scale incursion into southern Lebanon by the Israeli Defence Forces.

That's more like days upon days.

If it's true that they were targeted, why? Could it be that that they were Peacekeepers, working for the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization? Could it be that Israel didn't like being watched?

We'll never know because they don't have to answer for anything they do.

Stephen Harper's response to his death was "what was he doing there in the first place?" Simply a case of his being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two Israeli soldiers had been kidnapped so this could be excused. "Though Lebanese civilian casualties outnumbered those for Israel by almost ten to one, Harper announced that the Israeli response to provocations by Hezbollah was "measured."" (2) Measured? According to Linda McQuaig:

Harper's strong pro-Israel bias took on a dramatic new dimension in the summer of 2006 when Israel launched its devastating attack on Lebanon, after the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah ... Suddenly, some fifty thousand Canadians were in harm's way, trapped in a country that Israel was relentlessly bombing. Now, one would have thought that the first priority of a Canadian prime minister is the safety of Canadians. One would have thought that Harper, faced with a choice of expressing his support for Israel or doing everything he possibly could to protect tens of thousands of vulnerable Canadians, would opt for protecting the Canadians. After all, he is prime minister of Canada, not Israel.

But, astonishingly, Harper refused to do the very minimum necessary—to add his voice to those of other world leaders and the UN secretary-general in calling for a ceasefire in the conflict.

... Stephen Harper followed Bush's lead—as he has in so many areas—in refusing to call for a ceasefire. The message was clear: let the killing continue! In fact, Harper actively defended Israel's bombing, calling it a "measured" response, a description he refused to withdraw even after eight members of a Canadian family and a Canadian UN peacekeeper were killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon. Harper's stance amounted to giving encouragement to a foreign army whose actions were directly endangering the lives of Canadians. (3)

He recently stated that he has taken bruises for his undying support of Israel, but what I would like to know is when will he take a punch or two for us? "After all, he is prime minister of Canada, not Israel." And yet he is dragging Canada through the mud, and Canadians along with him.

And when Michael Ignatieff joined International voices demanding that Israel answer to possible war crimes for their actions, Harper immediately went on the attack.

In Question Period, he declared, "This is consistent with the anti-Israel position that has been taken [by] virtually all the candidates of the Liberal leadership." Noting that his wife was Jewish, Bob Rae demanded an apology, alleging that the PM's remarks were a divisive insult. "We cannot carry on politics in this country like this," Rae said. "It will not work. It divides Canadians. It's something for which he should be thoroughly embarrassed." Ignatieff similarly accused Harper of "playing crass politics with the issue of the Middle East. It's beneath him and his office to do so." (2)

But if anything he's gotten worse.

When Israeli seized a Turkish ship in international waters and killed nine peace activists, ours was the only government not to denounce their actions.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper cheerfully followed through with a planned meeting the next day with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Appearing with Netanyahu, Harper merely expressed regret about the loss of life and the fact that it interfered with Netanyahu's visit to Canada: "I'm sorry this has coloured this [visit]," said Harper, "but delighted you were able to join me at least last night and today, and we've had some important talks, so welcome to Canada." (4)

Interfered with his visit to Canada. Yes that's what I was worried about too.

The sad thing is, that this is all political. Stephen Harper could care less.

His position on Israel, more uncompromising than Ottawa had ever been accustomed, became the source of a long-running dispute with traditionalists ...
He was asserting the neo-conservative view, which framed issues in black-and-white as opposed to seeing them in the context of root causes, historical grievances, and the like.

[but] As well as conforming to Harper's beliefs, the policy had other benefits. Though Muslims outnumbered Jews by two to one in Canada, the Jewish community was more politically impactful. Harper was aware, for example, that he stood to gain a major advantage in the Canadian media with his position. The country's largest media empire, Canwest, was controlled by the Aspers, who made no secret of their allegiance to Jewish causes and became enthusiastic backers of Harper on all related questions. (2)

When Stephen Harper won the Alliance leadership, it was reported that Stockwell Day asked Harper to be the Alliance foreign affairs critic, but he said “No, you’re too pro-Israel.” At the time Ezra Levant was running for Harper's seat, but he eventually stepped down and Day became foreign affairs critic. (5)

That certainly lends credence to Harper's new found love of Israel, being only for political leverage. But where does that leave us?

Most Canadians are not anti-Israel, but we prefer a more even handed approach when it comes to the Middle East. Nobody wins in a nuclear war.

But our prime minister is actually choosing a foreign country over his own, and like a petulant child, used to getting his own way, Benjamin Netanyahu is challenging U.S. president Obama, because he knows he can. The mid-terms have given him more friends in Washington and Canada is willing to put "hard power" (2) behind whatever decision he makes.

And Canadian citizens have absolutely no say in the matter. None.

When Ari Fleischer was touting Stephen Harper around, arranging interviews on Fox News, Canadian journalist Scott Feschuk quipped: "I guess if there’s an upside, it’s that members of our own press gallery now understand what it takes to get a question answered by our Prime Minister – an American passport and Ari Fleischer’s cell number."

What will we need to get our prime minister to allow a debate on this subject? Netanyahu's cell number? It would appear he's now our co-leader.
Sources:

1. Canadian's Wife Wants Answers: Says deadly bombing of UN observer post was `intentional, by Phinjo Gombu, Toronto Star, July 28, 2006

2. Harperland: The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 80-82

3. HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT: Canada and the US Empire, By Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, Pg. 11-13

4. Stephen Harper delighted to help flotilla 'farce', By Linda McQuaig, Rabble, June 15, 2010

5. Ezra Levant is no Oscar Levant, By Larry Zolf, CBC News Viewpoint, April 2, 2002

History of Christians United For Israel

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Though Christians United for Israel is now headed up by John Hagee in the United States and Charles McVety in Canada, they were not the original founders.

In the 1970's when Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, decided to foster a relationship with the Moral Majority (Religious Right) to act as a lobbying partner, there was a rise in Evangelical groups promoting Israel.

In 1975, riding the wave; Evangelical pastor David Allen Lewis, formed a group called Christians United for Israel, which was not really a religious organization but a registered lobbyist, just as it is today. He led regular tour groups to the "Holy Land", and continued to do so until his death in 2007.

Under Begin and later Netanyahu, the relationship continued and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), begun in 1963, also gained prominence. The New York Times calls AIPAC "the most important organization affecting America's relationship with Israel." It has also been described as one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, DC, and its critics have state that it acts as an agent of the Israeli government with a "stranglehold" on the US Congress. (1) And the Religious Right can be credited with much of their success.

Israel's principal Washington, DC lobby, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, also became a powerful force, and some now say while its clout in the media flows directly from Jewish network executives, publishers, journalists, and advertisers, its hold on Congress is further strengthened by "60 million Evangelical Christians" who, as lobby advertisements put it, "believe the creation of Israel is the fulfillment of God's prophecy."

There's a complication in that, which neither Israel's Jewish supporters nor the two remaining most prominent televangelist leaders of this supposed pro-Israel horde, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, mention. (The other three nationally prominent pro-Israel televangelists, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker Tammy Faye's ex-husband all suffered an apparent cooling of ardor for Israel while serving jail time for unrelated sins.) The way these Charismatic Christians look at it, the "in gathering of the Jews" in Jerusalem is a necessary prelude, like the battle of Armageddon, for which they pray, to the second coming of Christ. They believe that they and others "who accept Christ as their personal Saviour" will be "raptured" into heaven, and the Jews, and probably the Christians who haven't set their watches to Christian Coalition time, will be left on earth to face "tribulations." It's not clear to this writer what these "tribulations" associated with Armaggedon are. Presumably they also await all of the four-fifths of the human race who are Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Theosophists and such, and to whom the British Rev. John Nelson Darby probably never gave a thought when in the 19th century he twisted fragments of Biblical prophesy into this gloomy scenario.

So U.S. support for Israel is based on America's 5 million Jews, who think Israel is a nice place to visit but wouldn't want to live there, and an earthly host of born agains who follow Pat Robertson and recently were enjoined by him to convert those Jews. (When Jewish leaders taxed him with "anti-Semitism" for trying to mess with their children's minds, he indignantly responded that it was impossible to call him anti-Semitic because he is so pro-Israel. It's not logical but nevertheless a neat defense.) (2)

But not all Israelis were happy about this relationship and things came to a head when Rev. Morris Cerullo of Worldwide Evangelism Inc. of San Diego, CA, mailed one million copies of a missionary tract entitled The Peace to Israelis in late 1996, and with a population of about 5 million Israelis, it amounted to about one copy per Jewish household.

As a result a law was drafted banning proselytizing.

In March [1998] ... the first draft of a law banning Christian missionary work in Israel ... makes it a criminal offense punishable with up to 15 years' imprisonment and subsequent deportation for foreigners "to teach or propagate Christian doctrine" in the Holy land.

Catholic or Protestant clergy, teachers or aid workers will be allowed into Israel only while traveling "in a wholly private capacity, as tourists or transients, with no public religious functions or observances included in their itinerary." Israelis have long resented Christian clergy, both the liberal kind who support Palestinian human rights, and the evangelical kind who encourage Jews to convert to their religion. (2)

This ruffled more than a few feathers on the Evangelical circuit:

Neither Pat Robertson nor Jerry Falwell, both of whom have been involved in Christian proselytizing by radio from Israel's "security zone" in southern Lebanon, and both of whom could be arrested, expelled, or even imprisoned on their next visits to Israel, could not be reached or would not comment after passage of the draft law. Others did, however.

"We see the noose of religious repression tightening all over the world," said DavidKammerdiener, executive vice president of the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board. "We certainly now even see it flowering in Israel." Citing American Jewish protests when the Southern Baptists adopted a resolution to support proclamation of the Gospel to the Jews," Kammerdiener said of the Jewish responses in both Israel and the U.S., "either one is an attack on liberty." (2)

And even Pastor Lewis from Christians United For Israel felt betrayed:

Even those Evangelical Christian ministers generally assumed to be receiving Israeli financial support, channeled through front organizations, found the law impossible to defend. "This bill means great hardship for Zionist evangelicals like myself," the Rev. David Allen Lewis, president of Christians United for Israel, told Spotlight, a Washington, DC national weekly frequently critical of Israel. "It will revive the argument of Christian anti-Semites who say: 'How can you support the Jewish nation when they are against Christianity?'" (2)

Not long after he abandoned CUFI and the lobbying group ceased it's operations. When Ariel Sharon became prime minister of Israel, the hard line commitment to holding on to the West Bank softened, as he took a more moderate stand. Fearing their road to Armageddon was being dug up, the Religious Right went on the attack:

As former Likud politicians such as Sharon and Olmert have moderated their stance, what has been the response of their allies in the American religious right? The response of the Christian right has been to lobby harder against any Israeli government effort to negotiate land for peace and any American effort to lead in that regard. What’s more, Pat Robertson has suggested that Sharon is in a coma because of his evacuation of Gaza settlements. Pastor Hagee has said that Hurricane Katrina happened because the Bush administration supported Sharon’s Gaza plan. (He also said it was because New Orleans was planning a gay pride parade. Poor man gets confused some times)

And Christian Zionist lobbying efforts have played no small part in the Bush administration downgrading of the conflict on the America agenda, with the result that there has been no serious negotiations in almost 8 years. There is an even darker side, to this movement of the religious right that calls itself “Christian Zionism.” Many of these groups have supported some of Israel’s most extreme and most dangerous elements with large amounts of money and legitimacy. (3)

In November of 2005, Charles McVety called John Hagee to notify him that there would be a Toronto “Night to Honour Israel” the following May. Hagee is said to have replied that “there’s no reason why we can’t do the same thing in every major city of North America.” After first seeking permission from Reverend Lewis to resurrect CUFI:

Subsequently, on February 7, 2006, 400 pastors and others joined together at Hagee’s Cornerstone Church to establish Christians United for Israel with
Christian rightist leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson prominently included and with Charles McVety named National Chairman for Canada. Others in the Canadian group are John Howarth (Executive Director), who is on the faculty of McVety’s college, Reverend John Tweedie of Brampton (National Chairman) and Reverend Dean Bye of Centralia, Ontario. (4)

This brings us to the present. Netanyahu is back in power, CUFI has been reborn and John Hagee has said of Stephen Harper: "God has promised to bless the man, the church, the nation that blesses the Jewish people." (5)

But as Rabbi Broitman points out:

Zionism is the movement for Jews to take control over our own history and destiny. Christian Zionism, as the religious right has formulated it, is an attempt to move us toward an end-time where Jews are lacking any power other than being passive actors in someone else’s prophetic drama. I do not doubt that the majority of evangelicals have a sincere love and concern for Israel and for Jews, whom they deeply believe are God’s chosen. Many of their leaders, however, have taken this love in the wrong direction. We do not want to be loved, so to speak, to death. (3)

Next: John Hagee and Christians United for Israel

Sources:

1. "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", By John Mearshimer and Walt, Stephen, Harvard University, March, 2006

2. Netanyahu Coalition and Evangelical Christians Are on Collision Course, By Nathan Jones. Washington Report on the Middle East, July 1997, pgs. 50-54

3. A critical analysis of the Jewish alliance with the Christian Right regarding Israel, By Rabbi Caryn Broitman, Yom Kippur 2008

4. Partners for Imperium: B’nai Brith Canada and the Christian Right, By Stephen Scheinberg, Outlook Magazine, July-August, 2008

5. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada's religious right, By Marci McDonald, The Walrus, October 2006

John Hagee, Menachem Begin, Benjamin Netanyahu and Jimmy Carter

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"How utterly repulsive, insulting, and heartbreaking to God for his chosen people to credit idols with bringing blessings he had showered upon the chosen people. Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of anti-Semitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come." John Hagee (1)

If anything defines the hypocrisy and viciousness of the Religious Right, it's their disdain for Jimmy Carter. Himself an evangelist, and one of the most caring people on the planet, he is treated by them as though he's the devil himself.

And why? Because he promotes peace in the Middle East.

At one of John Hagee's “Nights to Honor Israel”, the "evangelical" crowd get whipped into a frenzy:

They get even more stirred up when keynote speaker Michael Oren, an author and senior fellow at the Shalem center in Jerusalem, calls Jimmy Carter’s 2006 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, a “reprehensible” work, and the mere mention of Carter’s name earns a chorus of boos so hostile they would probably frighten a Philadelphia hockey fan. (2)

Jimmy Carter, for heaven sake, the creator of Habitat for Humanity. Is Christianity ever taking a nose dive.

So how did this happen? Rabbi Caryn Broitman explains:

The beginning of this evangelical-Jewish alliance around Israel goes back to the aftermath of the Six Day War but intensified in the late 1970’s. At that time, two concurrent political developments were taking place in Israel and in the United States: the election of Menachem Begin and the rise of Likud party in Israel; and the rise of the Moral Majority and the religious right in the United States. The Likud party is a secular party, but it emphasizes Jewish rights over the whole of the Biblical land of Israel including the West Bank.

Begin made an alliance with the nationalist religious movements of Israel such as Gush Emunim to promote the religious settlement movement on the West Bank. President Jimmy Carter, however, was pressuring Begin to negotiate with Palestinians based on a principle of land for Peace. Begin needed American allies to counter this pressure and who better than Christians who believe, as Pastor Hagee says, that Israel is the only country established by God himself and that “any nation that forces Israel to divide up their land will experience the judgment of God.” It was a match made in heaven.

When Menachem Begin became Prime Minister, he made it a point to cultivate relationships with the American religious right. He became good friends with Jerry Falwell, inviting him and hundreds of other evangelical pastors for trips to Israel at the expense of the Israeli government. Falwell responded with endorsements of the Likud Party’s strategy of building Israeli Settlements throughout the West Bank. Begin’s government later gave Falwell his own jet to make his travels to Israel easier.

Falwell and other leaders of the religious right, including Hal Lindsey, Pat Robertson, and Oral Roberts came through when they were needed by Likud politicians to lobby for their policies. In 1998 when Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came on a state visit to the United States, his first stop was to see leaders of the religious right, such as Ralph Reed director of the Christian Coalition. “We have no greater friends and allies,” he said to them, than the people sitting in this room.”

Netanyahu’s statement may be startling to some, but it does make sense if one’s priority for Israel is to hold on to all the biblical land. They were Netanyahu’s best friends, better friends than President Clinton from that perspective, with whom he was meeting the next day and who was pressuring Netanyahu as well as the Palestinians to meaningfully negotiate. For the Likud party and their supporters, this was a smart political alliance.

Liberal objections about the real motives of these Evangelicals were not persuasive. True, these Christian right leaders believed the real significance of the State of Israel was its role in the apocalyptic end-times scenario, which they believed would culminate in the wiping out of most Jews and the conversion of the remaining few. This is deeply problematic and offensive for us as Jews. One could argue, however, that we don’t believe in these visions of the end time anyway, so what do they matter? If we agree on what should happen in this world, why not agree to disagree on what happens in the next. (3)

And one of the evangelical leaders to visit Israel in the 1970's was Pastor John Hagee, recently divorced and remarried to the woman with whom he'd had an affair.

With his reputation badly damaged by the divorce and apparent infidelity, he found solace — and a new career niche — in the Holy Land. In 1978, he and Diana (then pregnant with Matthew) made a trip to Israel, and came back committed Zionists. In 1981, when Israeli air strikes destroyed Iraq’s prized nuclear reactor, Hagee felt the need to defend Israel against the harsh criticisms of the international media.

Although he initially received little support from Jewish leaders (who looked at him “like he had a contagious rash,” according to Hagee) aside from Aryeh Scheinberg, a local Orthodox rabbi, Hagee inaugurated his “Night to Honor Israel,” meant to be a fundraiser for Jewish and pro-Israel causes, and a festive show of solidarity from Christians to the nation of Israel.

Hagee says his support for Israel stems from a heartfelt conviction that Jews have an unshakable biblical claim on Israel, but skeptics counter that his end-times theology, largely derived from the menacing imagery of the Book of Revelation, depends upon a prophesied invasion of Israel by Russia and Iran. If Israel brokered a two-state solution in the region and achieved a lasting peace with its neighbors, Hagee’s end-times checklist would be disrupted. Consider this passage from his best-known book, Jerusalem Countdown: “[God] has dragged these anti-Semitic nations to the nations of Israel to crush them so that the Jews of Israel will confess that He is the Lord. America and Europe will not save Israel — God will!” (2)

The Likud Party* has been returned to power with Benjamin Netanyahu once more at the helm. And he has also fostered a relationship with the Religious Right, though it is no longer just with the Americans. He also now has the support of Canada's Religious Right and it's extension: The Harper government. When Israeli seized a Turkish ship in international waters last month, killing nine peace activists, we were one of the few countries not to speak out against this criminal act:

While governments around the world denounced the Israeli attack and Turkey decried it as an act of "state terrorism," Prime Minister Stephen Harper cheerfully followed through with a planned meeting the next day with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Appearing with Netanyahu, Harper merely expressed regret about the loss of life and the fact that it interfered with Netanyahu's visit to Canada: "I'm sorry this has coloured this [visit]," said Harper, "but delighted you were able to join me at least last night and today, and we've had some important talks, so welcome to Canada." (4)

During the 2008 presidential race, Hagee threw his support behind John McCain, but the entire thing blew up in McCain's face, as the real John Hagee was exposed.

Hagee endorsed Republican Senator John McCain for president over a more obvious choice, Southern evangelical Mike Huckabee. McCain had courted Hagee for months, and stood by the San Antonio pastor’s side while saying that he was “very honored” by the endorsement.

Over the next three months, McCain found himself continually having to defend Hagee’s endless backlog of inflammatory pronouncements: that the Catholic Church is the “great whore” of scripture, that New Orleans brought the devastation of Katrina on itself by sinfully planning a gay-pride parade, that all Muslims want to destroy Christianity, that God will punish the United States if our political leaders urge Israel to give up some of its land (“This nation is going to go through a bloodbath because of what you’ve done.”), and that God sent Hitler to help drive the Jews to the promised land. Finally, after the slow drip of McCain repudiating Hagee statements one by one, on May 22, he rejected the pastor’s support, leading a bitter Hagee to announce that he would never again endorse a political candidate. (2)

I think that John McCain is a decent guy and may have been able to steer the Republicans back from the depths of hell, but between Sarah Palin and John Hagee, not to mention the legacy of George Bush, he didn't stand a chance.

So what does this have to with us, besides the fact that we're the only nation supporting piracy and murder? Hagee is losing credibility in the United States (though not with his flock), while his Canadian business partner, Charles McVety is gaining power in Canada.

Not only is McVety a long time friend of Jim Flaherty's, but he also has a close relationship with Stockwell Day and Jason Kenney, and according to McVety himself, can get Stephen Harper on the phone anytime he wishes. Hagee rents office space from McVety in Toronto, and his books and tapes are sold from McVety's Christian college. (5)

Even in the reliably conservative world of mega-church evangelism, the old order is changing. Hagee’s incendiary political attacks and Armageddon fear-mongering suited the post-9/11 anger and anxiety that gripped America, but the rising stars on the evangelical circuit are now touchy-feely compassionate conservatives such as Joel Hunter, an Orlando, Florida, evangelical who delivered the benediction at this year’s Democratic National Convention, and Rick Warren, who heads Saddleback Community Church in California and hosted a faith summit with Barack Obama and John McCain this summer. (2)

The Tea Parties have created a bit of a surge for Religious fanaticism, Fox News and Republican nonsense, but I think even that is starting to burn itself out, they've become so ridiculous. Ann Coulter is now boring and Glenn Beck parodied more than Sarah Palin.

So will people like Hagee find a more willing audience north of the border? After all we did have a visit from the Queen of spite recently and Stephen Harper has signed a deal for a Fox News North. Welcome to our future.

Footnotes:

*Interestingly, McLaughlin and Associates, an American Republican consulting firm, takes credit for the career of both Stephen Harper and the Likud Party, as well as many Religious Right endorsed Republican politicians.

Sources:

1. Columbia Journalism Review, March 7, 2008

2. The Zionist in winter, By Gilbert Garcia, The San Antonio Current, November 12, 2008

3. A critical analysis of the Jewish alliance with the Christian Right regarding Israel, By Rabbi Caryn Broitman, Yom Kippur 2008

4. Stephen Harper delighted to help flotilla 'farce', By Linda McQuaig, Rabble.ca, June 15, 2010

5. . The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Random House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8

Theodore Herzl and the State of Israel

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Theodore Herzl is the father of the Zionist movement, a rather unusual honour for a man who was not terribly religious and always opposed organized religion, which he called uncivilized. His family were German speaking assimilated Jews, who followed a secular lifestyle.

When at university Theodore belonged to the Burschenschaften, an association of university students inspired by liberal and nationalistic ideas. However, he was moved by anti-Semitism and felt that it could never be defeated, and the only solution was the establishment of a Jewish state.

“ The Jewish question persists wherever Jews live in appreciable numbers. Wherever it does not exist, it is brought in together with Jewish immigrants. We are naturally drawn into those places where we are not persecuted, and our appearance there gives rise to persecution. This is the case, and will inevitably be so, everywhere, even in highly civilised countries—see, for instance, France—so long as the Jewish question is not solved on the political level. The unfortunate Jews are now carrying the seeds of anti-Semitism into England; they have already introduced it into America. ”

Palestine was his first choice for such a state, so he arranged a meeting with Sultan Abdulhamid II in 1896, with his proposal, but he would have none of it. "if one day the Islamic State falls apart then you can have Palestine for free, but as long as I am alive I would rather have my flesh be cut up than cut out Palestine from the Muslim land." (1)

The following year he founded the First Zionist Congress and began a series of diplomatic initiatives intended to build support for a Jewish country, also looking at possibly Egypt or Uganda. However, the congress was determined to make Palestine their home and so they began buying up land from absentee landlords, which ultimately drove many peasants from their homes.

According to Jews for Justice in the Middle East:

Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, stated ‘We shall try to spirit the penniless [Arab] population across the border by procuring employment for it in transit countries, while denying it employment in our own country... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly’ ... (2)

In 1901 the Jewish National Fund was created ‘to redeem the land of Palestine as the inalienable possession of the Jewish people'.

At various locations in northern Palestine Arab farmers refused to move from land the Fund purchased from absentee owners, and the Turkish authorities, at the Fund’s request, evicted them...The indigenous Jews of Palestine also reacted negatively to Zionism. They did not see the need for a Jewish state in Palestine and did not want to exacerbate relations with the Arabs.”

An article by Yitzhak Epstein, published in Hashiloah in 1907...called for a new Zionist policy towards the Arabs after 30 years of settlement activity... no good land is vacant, so Jewish settlement meant Arab dispossession...Epstein’s solution to the problem, so that a new “Jewish question” may be avoided, is the creation of a bi-national, non-exclusive program of settlement and development. Purchasing and should not involve the dispossession of poor sharecroppers. It should mean creating a joint farming community, where the Arabs will enjoy modern technology. Schools, hospitals and libraries should be non-exclusivist and education bilingual ... The vision of non-exclusivist, peaceful cooperation to replace the practice of dispossession found few takers. Epstein was maligned and scorned for his faintheartedness.” (2)

The Zionist movement took on steam and on November 2, 1917, on the initiative of Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour and Baron Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild) a formal statement of policy was announced by the British government:

"His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." (2)

But they soon became alarmed:

“Britain’s high commissioner for Palestine, John Chancellor, recommended total suspension of Jewish immigration and land purchase to protect Arab agriculture. He said ‘all cultivable land was occupied; that no cultivable land now in possession of the indigenous population could be sold to Jews without creating a class of landless Arab cultivators’...

In 1919, the American King-Crane Commission spent six weeks in Syria and Palestine, interviewing delegations and reading petitions. Their report stated, “The commissioners began their study of Zionism with minds predisposed in its favor...The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission’s conferences with Jewish representatives that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase... “If [the] principle [of self-determination] is to rule, and so the wishes of Palestine’s population are to be decisive as to what is to be done with Palestine, then it is to be remembered that the non-Jewish population of Palestine — nearly nine-tenths of the whole — are emphatically against the entire Zionist program.. To subject a people so minded to unlimited Jewish immigration, and to steady financial and social pressure to surrender the land, would be a gross violation of the principle just quoted...No British officers, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms.The officers generally thought that a force of not less than fifty thousand soldiers would be required even to initiate the program. That of itself is evidence of a strong sense of the injustice of the Zionist program...The initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a ‘right’ to Palestine based on occupation of two thousand years ago, can barely be seriously considered. (2)

Leo Strauss's friend Walter Moses, from his days with the Blau-Weiss, part of the Zionist Youth movement, became an early and prosperous settler, but as to be expected, the Arab population fought against the arrival of even more settlers and petitioned the League of Nations in 1928:

"It is the duty of the League of Nations, after ten years of absolute colonial rule, to grant to Palestine a democratic parliamentary government in accordance with the League's pledges and the pledges of the allies to the Arabs. "The people of Palestine cannot and will not tolerate the present absolute colonial system, and urgently insist upon and demand an alteration." Christians and Jews were shocked at this evidence of infidel determination to make of Palestine a home for Arabs. (3)

In 1936-9, the Palestinian Arabs attempted a nationalist revolt...

David Ben-Gurion, eminently a realist, recognized its nature. In internal discussion, he noted that ‘in our political argument abroad, we minimize Arab opposition to us,’ but he urged, ‘let us not ignore the truth among ourselves.’ The truth was that ‘politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country, while we are still outside’... The revolt was crushed by the British, with considerable brutality.” Tensions continued and raids on Jewish settlements escalated. (2)

According to Ghandi:

“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French...What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct...If they [the Jews] must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs... As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regard as an unacceptable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.” (2)

Two wrongs did not make a right. There was an opportunity, as Yitzhak Epstein suggested, for Arabs, Jews and and Christians to live in peace, but that notion was rejected. And the violence continued:

For weeks Jews and Arabs had uneasily bided their time, waiting on London's word. London, in turn, was waiting on Washington's word. Last week Jews and Arabs refused to wait any longer. Both factions concentrated on the 28the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration (Nov. 2).* For both it was an unhappy milestone for the Jews because of a promise made and unfulfilled, for the Arabs because the promise had been made at all. In advance, the Arabs had proclaimed a general strike throughout the Near East on that day. But the Jews struck first.

Two nights before the anniversary, explosions rocked Palestine from Dan to Beersheba. Armed bands, operating under a master plan of sabotage, crippled the country's railroads with dynamitings at 153 points. In Haifa harbor, where a British cruiser and four destroyers lay at anchor, police launches used for halting illegal immigrants were boarded and scuttled. At dawn six men were dead, eight wounded. Two of the dead were Jews. British authorities clamped a curfew on the whole coastal area.

Speaking for Britain's normally pro-Jewish Labor Government, Colonial Secretary George Hall denounced "the dastardly series of outrages" in Palestine, carefully planned by a "very considerable organization among the Jewish community." Hall did not identify the organization. But two groups, both disavowed by the Jewish Agency, were almost certainly involved: the strongly militant underground Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization) and its still more aggressive offshoot, a gang of gunmen who called themselves "Israel's Freedom Fighters." Both were well armed, experienced guerrillas whose credo was: the time for talk is past.

Never before had so many Palestinian Jews sympathized with the guerrillas. Even the sober Palestine Post affirmed that Jews had gone over "from defensive to offensive action." But Britain was bitter. Secretary Hall bluntly warned Palestine's Jews that they could expect no help from London if violence was to be their policy.

Prime Minister Attlee, preparing to talk things over with President Truman (see INTERNATIONAL), knew that no decision would please everybody. Now he also knew that procrastination was as dangerous as decision. (4)

Eventually Truman did make a decision, siding with the Zionists. As he explained: “I am sorry gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents.” (2)

*****************************

When the announcement was made in May of 1948 that Israel was to become a state, an eight-year-old boy was listening to the radio. The son of a revivalist preacher, he turned to his father, wondering what this meant, and his father stated: "This is the most important biblical day in the 20th Century. For all the prophets of the Old Testament have now been vindicated and Israel has been born."

That boy would grow up to be a preacher himself and made it his mission to fulfill his father's assessment. And that is how John Hagee became a millionaire.

Sources:

1. The Making of the Modern Near East 1792-1923, By M. E. Yapp, Longman, 1987, ISBN 0-582-49380-3, Pg. 290

2. The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict, Published by Jews for Justice in the Middle East

3. PALESTINE: Intolerable! Time Magazine, July 16, 1928

4. THE NEAR EAST: Eruption, Time Magazine, November 12, 1945

Jason Kenney and the NGO Monitor on a Rampage to Destroy Humanitarian Organizations

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

The American Enterprise Institute, home of Dick Cheney, Lynn Cheney, Richard Perle and William Kristol, and former home of David Frum, has launched a new campaign to rid the world of any notion of human compassion, in exchange for bombs, bullets and bibles. They call it NGO monitor and if you get caught in their cross hairs ' Boom! - You're gone.

KAIROS can attest to just how ruthless they are, and Jason Kenney has now become a soldier for their tyrannical forces.

When he spoke in Jerusalem recently, he announced that he had indeed cut the funding to KAIROS because they did not support Israeli aggression. Ironically, the broad statement upset many Israelis, who also want an end to the conflict; and seek a two-state solution. Surely Jason Kenny doesn't believe that Jewish people living in Israel are antisemitic, simply because they value all human life.

However, Kenney is under contract to the Christian extremist group 'Christians United for Israel', so must do as they tell him. The Canadian head of this group is Charles McVety (1), who sees Stephen Harper more than Laureen, and is so close to Stockwell Day, Jim Flaherty and Jason Kenney, that people are starting to talk.

CUFI, whose founder is the American multi-millionaire and doomsdayer John Hagee, believe in a biblical prophesy that demands the annihilation of the Muslims in the Middle East, at which time all the Jews are put in boats and lovingly transported to Israel.

One of the teachers at McVety's Christian College, Reverend Dean Bye, states: "It is estimated that upwards of six million Jewish people are still dwelling in North America ... North American Jews must recognize they must all "return" to Israel..." and he warns: "the time of the U.S.A. being a safe haven for the Jews has ended!" . He adds that "we don’t throw them overboard [like Jonah] but lovingly assist them home to Israel. " (2)

But as Dr. Stephen Scheinberg, a man who has written extensively on the subject points out "... most of the Jewish community has not responded to his generous proposal that they leave their homes for aliyah to Israel," even if they are being 'lovingly assisted'. (3)

Canadians shouldn't be surprised to learn of other NGOs who are on Kenney's hit list. Groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, for starters. If AEI's NGO Monitor, headed up by Gerald Steinberg, has it's way, they will definitely be next.

According to Bahija Réghaï, former president of the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations:

NGOM started as a joint project of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) and B'nai Brith International, with funds from the Wechsler Family Foundation (U.S.). It operates out of the JCPA whose president is U.S.-born Dore Gold, former Foreign Policy Adviser to both Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, and former ambassador to the United Nations for Israel. NGOM's editor is Gerald M. Steinberg, a professor at right-wing Bar-Ilan University and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post*. (4)

Rob Lipton and Cecilie Surasky wrote about the NGO Monitor in 2007:

Although using language that would appear to give the impression of a neutral watch dog of non-governmental human rights organizations (NGOs), NGO Monitor (NGOM) is a partisan organization that weakens universal human rights infrastructure by charging many of the world’s best known human rights organizations with bias against Israel.

Their mission statement says they were founded to: promote accountability, and advance a vigorous discussion on the reports and activities of humanitarian NGOs in the framework of the Arab-Israeli conflict. However, a more straightforward description of their ideological bias comes from liberal Jewish thinker Leonard Fein who says: "NGO Monitor, is an organization that believes that the best way to defend Israel is to condemn anyone who criticizes it."

NGO Monitor operates out of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs/Institute for contemporary Affairs. Its editor is Gerald Steinberg, a professor at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, who wrote not just about NGOs, but also journalists and academics in 2003: "Israel-bashing is promoted by that other axis of evil, journalists, diplomats (including the United Nations), academics and self-proclaimed universal human rights groups. These non-governmental organizations (NGOs) enjoy a halo effect, and an image of promoting noble causes without political bias exempts them from scrutiny. They are also extremely influential, and their reports are quoted extensively. In reality, however, these NGOs are at the very core of the anti-Israel axis of evil. By promoting the campaign of hatred and delegitimization, such groups are morally guilty of justifying terrorism.

This world-view is behind the single-minded commitment to weakening some of the world's most respected human rights and civil society groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem and the New Israel Fund.

As any superficial or substantive look at AI and HRW shows, they offer equal opportunity criticisms of human rights violations across the world, yet NGO Monitor views them as players in a nefarious plot to delegitimize Israel. Israeli human rights groups, instead of central players in the fight for a just country for all of its citizens, are seen as a kind of fifth column.

In Monitoring the Monitor, in 2005, Leonard Fein decided to monitor just one NGOM report on Human Rights Watch, one of NGOM's favorite targets. The results of his efforts are telling: On April 18, NGO Monitor issued a draft report on Human Rights Watch, which claims that an objective quantitative analysis shows that Human Rights Watch places an extreme emphasis on critical assessments of Israel. "I have reviewed the draft document and checked its central claim against the actual documents Human Rights Watch has produced regarding Israel since the year 2000.

"The discrepancy between NGO Monitor's claims and Human Rights Watch's record is massive. Human Rights Watch has in fact devoted more attention to each of five other nations in the region. Iraq, Sudan, Egypt, Turkey and Iran ; than to Israel. I called this to Steinberg' s attention on May 3, and he responded that NGO Monitor would examine and respond to the discrepancies. Since then, I have received 27 emails from Steinberg; not one has in any way responded to this matter. Yet the draft report remains online, unamended." (5)

Next: Harper Government Has Traded Humanitarian Aid For Bullets

Footnotes:

*One of Conrad Black's newspapers used to turn Israel to the right.

Sources:

1. The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Rndom House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8 3

2. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada’s religious right, By Marci McDonald, The Walrus, October 2006

3. Partners for Imperium: B’nai Brith Canada and the Christian Right, By Stephen Scheinberg, Outlook Magazine, July-August, 2008

4. Policy and prejudice: De-funding Canadian aid projects, By Bahija Réghaï, January 18, 2010

5. NGO Monitor: attacking New Israel Fund, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, By Rob Lipton with Cecilie Surasky, Muzzle Watch, June 25, 2007

Was Hitler Doing God's Work? John Hagee Thinks So

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"God says in Jeremiah 16 - 'Behold I will bring them the Jewish people again unto their land that I gave unto their fathers' - that would be Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - 'Behold I will send for many fishers and after will I send for many hunters. And they the hunters shall hunt them' - that will be the Jews - 'from every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.' If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust... you can't see that? So think about this - I will send fishers and I will send hunters." - Pastor John Hagee in a sermon

"Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says -- Jeremiah writing -- 'They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,' meaning there's no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don't let your heart be offended. I didn't write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel." - Pastor John Hagee in a sermon

Rather astonishing words by John Hagee suggesting that Adolf Hitler was doing God's work. But it speaks to the ideology of Christian Zionists who believe that the end times are near, so they must get all the Jewish people to Israel.

But there is actually more to it than that.

Theodore Herzl (1850-1904)

"Theodore Herzl is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew who at the turn of the 19th century said, this land is our land, God wants us to live there. So he went to the Jews of Europe and said 'I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel.' So few went that Herzl went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the holocaust." - Pastor John Hagee in a sermon

That is a very simplistic description of who Theodore Herzl was and in fact Herzl would never have cared much for people like John Hagee.

In fact he hated organized religion. When at university he belonged to the Burschenschaften, an association of university students inspired by liberal and nationalistic ideas.

As a Jew he saw the poison of anti-Semitism and really felt that it could not be defeated or cured, and the only solution was the establishment of a Jewish state.

“ The Jewish question persists wherever Jews live in appreciable numbers. Wherever it does not exist, it is brought in together with Jewish immigrants. We are naturally drawn into those places where we are not persecuted, and our appearance there gives rise to persecution. This is the case, and will inevitably be so, everywhere, even in highly civilised countries—see, for instance, France—so long as the Jewish question is not solved on the political level. The unfortunate Jews are now carrying the seeds of anti-Semitism into England; they have already introduced it into America. ”

He met with with Sultan Abdulhamid II to put forward his proposal for a Jewish state in Palestine, but the Sultan was not supportive of the idea. "if one day the Islamic State falls apart then you can have Palestine for free, but as long as I am alive I would rather have my flesh be cut up than cut out Palestine from the Muslim land."

Eventually the Balfour Declaration created the state of Israel, but Herzl had already inspired the Zionist movement. But he did not intend for it to be used in the way that the Christian fundamentalists are using it. They should be ashamed.

John Hagee and Hitler

When John Hagee suggested that Hitler was doing God's work, he probably meant more than the fact that he forced the Jewish people from their homeland of Germany, which is unforgivable, but he no doubt also appreciated that Hitler went after the Communists.

As many in the Religious Right were calling Obama the Antichrist, Tim Lehaye assured them that Obama was not the Antichrist because they had to get rid of the Communists first.



What happened to the goodness of Christians? This is not spiritually, it's evil. Pure evil.

Fortunately, most Christians do not think like that but what is alarming is how many in the governments of both the Unites States and Canada do. Bruce Wilson did a lot of research into the Hitler/Hagee preaching and has written extensively on the subject. He has videos as well. I find it all very sad.

Hitler and the Nazis were sent by God, to chase Jews back to the land of Israel. Because that's where God intends them to be. So, the Holocaust was a gruesomely inefficient system of divine "persuasion", and Hitler and the Nazis were doing "God's work". But Hagee also depicts this divine ethnic cleansing imperative as a future project: it will happen.

In Hagee's 2006 "Jerusalem Countdown", Hagee says anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust, were and are the fault of Jews - a divine curse for worshiping idols.

What a horrible man. What the Religious Right may not realize is that they have probably created more atheists that communism ever could. I no longer believe in God because of them and it makes me mad as hell.

Hagee is no better than Hitler because that man supports the genocide of the Muslim people. Evil did not die with Adolf Hitler.

John Hagee and Christians United for Israel

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"The Quran teaches that all Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews. Yes, it teaches that very clearly." John Hagee

The video above was taken at a 'Christians United for Israel' conference. The first man being interviewed is Tom Lehaye, a Republican senator.

John Hagee is the author of the book Jerusalem Countdown, in which he describes an end day prophesy, where all the Jews are herded to Israel (after the Middle East is levelled). They will then accept Christianity or be slaughtered, so that born again Christians can feel "the rapture".

It might be tempting to roll our eyes or chuckle, but unfortunately a large number of people who not only believe this but feel they have to accelerate it, belong to our current government; the Conservative Party of Canada, and their supporters.

And Stephen Harper is even basing our foreign policy on the wish list of what has been called the Canadian Religious Right, which explains his unprecedented support of Israel.

Many theologians denounce his actions, and several are speaking out, but they are not being given a proper platform. One of them is Stephen Scheinberg. Dr. Scheinberg was emeritus professor of history at Concordia University (1), and Co-chair of Canadian Friends of Peace Now.

He explains how the group came about:

McVety and his associates are associated with the dispensationalist brand of the evangelical movement, a grouping sometimes termed Christian Zionists. They are fundamentalists, believing in the authority of an error-free scripture and opposed to abortion access, gay marriage, or use of embryonic stem cells for medical research, while favouring traditional roles for women and protection of the public from what they deem to be pornography.

The appeal of these extremist Christians to the Jewish right is obvious, since the prophecies of the former cannot be implemented until the return of all the Jewish people to all the lands of ancient Israel. CCanadian dispensationalist clergy are part of Hagee’s Christians United for Israel and claim to have taken a lead in establishing that organization, beginning with a telephone call from McVety to Hagee in November of 2005 to notify him that there would be a Toronto “Night to Honour Israel” the following May. Hagee is said to have replied that “there’s no reason why we can’t do the same thing in every major city of North America.”

Subsequently, on February 7, 2006, 400 pastors and others joined together at Hagee’s Cornerstone Church to establish Christians United for Israel with Christian rightist leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson prominently included and with Charles McVety named National Chairman for Canada. Others in the Canadian group are John Howarth (Executive Director), who is on the faculty of McVety’s college, Reverend John Tweedie of Brampton (National Chairman) and Reverend Dean Bye of Centralia, Ontario.

[From] Reverend Bye ... North American Jews must recognize they must all “return” to Israel and he warns: “the time of the U.S.A. being a safe haven for the Jews has ended!” ... He adds that “we don’t throw them overboard [like Jonah] but lovingly assist them home to Israel.” I believe that Bye’s implicit judgment, then, is that like Jonah North American Jews have turned their backs on God and must recognize that their only true home is in Israel.

Unfortunately for Dean Bye, most of the Jewish community has not responded to his generous proposal that they leave their homes for aliyah to Israel.

It is no surprise that Reverend McVety also has close ties to the Conservative Party. Liberal MP Garth Turner claimed that McVety told him that he can call and get Prime Minister Harper on the phone within minutes.

A good many of the party’s candidates in the last election were social conservatives, including several current cabinet members, for example Attorney General Vic Toews, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Flaherty. It was perhaps through Day that McVety made his connections to Ben-Ami and then his alliance with B’nai Brith. (2)

Raising the alarm over the religious Right does not mean that you are persecuting Christians. Nor does it mean that you are denouncing evangelism. These people are Christian extremists and their beliefs conflict with those of the majority of Canadians. And yet they are the ones who are currently directing both the domestic and foreign policies of our government. This is a very dangerous thing.

We need to not only hold our current government to account, but also our media. They have a duty to inform Canadians and yet most have failed to perform that duty.

Marci McDonald has written a great book (1) on the subject, but it's still up to us to get the word out. We can think of this as our holy mission.

Sources:

1. The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Random House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8

2. Partners for Imperium: B’nai Brith Canada and the Christian Right, By Stephen Scheinberg, Outlook Magazine, July-August, 2008

The Not so Invisble Hand of John Hagee

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that." John Hagee

John Charles Hagee is the founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, that boasts 19,000 regular members. He is also the chief executive officer of Global Evangelism Television and John Hagee Ministries. And he is the founder and National Chairman of the Christian-Zionist organization Christians United for Israel, incorporated on February 7, 2006.

Born in 1940, he came upon his calling early, having travelled with his family in a mobile home as the Hagee Family Singers. His father would preach revivals all over Texas, and John, his older brother Bill, and parents provided the music. Today his wife and children have revived the Hagee Family singers and the sale of their CDs show a very handsome profit.

Some critics believe there is a bit too much profit taken from Hagee's ministry.

With the dozens of men bearing glinting platters in the aisles, and six cameramen capturing the moment, Hagee instructs church members to hold their money toward the heavens. The thousands repeat after him: "Give and it shall be given."

"When you give, it qualifies you to receive God's abundance," he tells his listeners. "If God gives to you before you give to him, God himself will become a liar. ... If you're not prospering, it's because you're not giving ... And it is a message that has helped his nonprofit television arm, Global Evangelism Television, become a prosperous, global, moneymaking family enterprise that has netted millions year after year peddling prayer, inspirational books, tapes and the promise of prosperity.

Since Hagee and his wife, Diana Hagee, founded GETV 25 years ago, the organization has gone from a back-room operation broadcasting Sunday sermons to San Antonio area viewers to a 50,000-square-foot multimedia studio broadcasting to 127 television stations and 82 radio stations nationwide. "God has blessed it until it has literally reached the Earth," Hagee recently said at his studio about his television evangelism enterprise. (1)

However, like many key players of the American Religious Right, Hagee has set his sights on Canada and has firmly entrenched himself with Stephen Harper and the Reform-Conservative movement.

He has rented office space at the Canadian Christian Bible College and is business partners with the College's owner, Charles McVety. McVety is a cohort of Jim Flaherty, Stockwell Day and Jason Kenney. The Bible college also sells Hagee's books and tapes. (2)

And the Texas preacher is a fan of Stephen Harper's.

Hagee lauded one of Stephen Harper’s first post-election acts: after Hamas militants won power in the Palestinian Authority, Harper became the first world leader to cut off its funding, trumping even Bush ...“I am so delighted that Canada’s prime minister immediately denounced Hamas terrorism when he became the leader of this great nation.”Hagee’s assessment of Harper isn’t based on news clips alone. His Toronto host, not to mention his longtime Canadian major-domo, was Canada Christian College president Charles McVety, one of the most outspoken players in this country’s religious right wing.

During the last election, as head of a handful of pro-family lobbies including the Defend Marriage Coalition, McVety emerged as a power to be reckoned with. He bought up the rights to unclaimed Liberal websites such as josephvolpe.com and stacked a handful of Conservative nomination contests in favour of evangelical candidates adamantly opposed to same-sex matrimony, a campaign he has vowed to repeat.

As Harper navigates the tricky waters of minority rule—keeping the lid on any eruptions of rhetorical fervour from the rambunctious theo-cons in his caucus—it is noteworthy that he has continued to cultivate a man regarded as the lightning rod of the Christian right. Last spring, those around the prime minister drafted McVety to help sell the government’s contentious child-care policy, and on budget day he was the personal guest of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in the Commons’ vip gallery.(3)

But more importantly, Hagee appreciates Stephen Harper's blind devotion to Israel.

During this summer’s Middle East war, Harper reversed decades of Canadian foreign policy with his adamant support for Israel, even after its jets smashed a clearly marked United Nations observation post, killing a veteran Canadian Peacekeeper. His admirers argue that steadfastness could turn the burgeoning bond between evangelical Christians and Jews into a powerful and unprecedented alliance that could leave him unbeatable at the ballot box.

But a growing chorus of critics warns that Harper has already paid a high price for that strategic calculation, irrevocably alienating Canada’s mushrooming Islamic population and leaving in shreds the country’s reputation as an even-handed peace broker. (3)

We should be very concerned with this relationship because as Marci McDonald points out:

Harper’s stand has also raised more unsettling questions. What does it mean if and when a believer in the infallibility of Biblical prophecy comes to power and backs a damn-the-torpedoes course in the Middle East? Does it end up fuelling overenthusiastic end-timers who feel they have nothing to lose in some future conflagration, helping speed the world on Hagee’s fast track to Armageddon? (3)

What does it mean?

More Postings on Hagee:

Christians United For Israel

Sources:

1. Critics say John Hagee's compensation is too high, By: Analisa Nazareno, San Antonio Express-News, June 20, 2003

2. The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Rndom House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8

3. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada’s religious right, by Marci McDonald, Walrus Magazine, October 2006

A Culture of Defiance: Introduction

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

In 1997, Stephen Joseph Harper, our current, at least current to my writing this, Prime Minister; was asked to give a speech on the Canadian political system, to the Council for National Policy, a secretive American lobby group, who were meeting in Montreal. CNP is an influential right-wing organization founded by Tim LaHaye and James Dobson, and in many ways are the military arm of the Religious Right in the United States.

Tim Lahaye is the co-author, along with Jerry B. Jenkins, of an enormously successful series of books, called Left Behind. These books have formed the foundation of Christians United for Israel, a religious group pushing for the annihilation of Muslims in the Middle East, as a step on their road to Armageddon. CUFI's founder John Hagee, calls it "God's Foreign Policy".

Their Canadian head is Charles McVety, a man who has a lot of clout with our current government and enjoys not only ready access to people like Jason Kenney (Immigration), Stockwell Day (Treasury) and Jim Flaherty (Finance), but also Stephen Harper himself.

James Dobson is the founder of Focus on the Family, an anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-public school, organization; that includes several of Harper's MPs; like Maurice Vellacott, Rob Anders, and Brad Trost. The Canadian founder of Focus on the Family, Darrel Reid, is now Harper's deputy chief of staff.

Dobson assisted in Harper's political success by running a series of radio ads in Canadian cities against same-sex marriage; an issue that Harper then adopted as part of his reaching out to the social conservatives.



When that 1997 speech first surfaced during the 2005-2006 federal election, it raised a lot of red flags, once again adding fuel to the fear of Stephen Harper's "Hidden Agenda".

Many quotes were pulled from it, and the Liberal campaign included bits and pieces. It is believed that it actually cost the Reform-Conservatives a majority government.

But I've read that speech several times, and what I get from it is arrogance. An arrogance that implies that we are all wrong, but we're too ignorant to even know that we are all wrong. That only he can see the error of our ways.

Now, having given you a compliment, let me also give you an insult. I was asked to speak about Canadian politics. It may not be true, but it's legendary that if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians.

What was the point of that remark? He's speaking to Americans, about Canadians.

First, facts about Canada. Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.

In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance. (1)

It's almost like an attack ad. Very much the way he acts in Parliament now against his political opponents, only in this case, it was against the Canadian people.

It wasn't a clever speech. There were no great pearls of wisdom. It was flip and if he was actually trying to educate this group on Canadian politics, it would have only created confusion. He talks about 'Whigs' without explaining who they were. States that most Catholics vote Liberal for 'reasons he didn't want to get into.' Why bring it up at all if he wasn't going to qualify it?

We do get a glimpse into his ideology when he refers to women's rights as 'feminist' rights, and "... including some that would just horrify you, putting universal Medicare in our constitution.." What is so horrifying about universal Medicare?

If I were in the audience, I definitely would never have got the impression that this was a man with political aspirations. If he wrote that speech it was grade eight at best.

"...and a whole bunch of fairly non-conservative economic things."

" ... and a whole bunch of other things"

But I think that it helps to define this movement. It has always been about protest and arrogance and ignorance. They adhere to the Old Testament and have a view of Canada as being in moral decay. They want to return to the "good old days" when women knew their place and there was prayer in school, and a sea of white faces.

In it's seventy-five year history, there have only ever really been five leaders: William Aberhart, Ernest Manning, his son Preston Manning, Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper, and their political views have not progressed but stagnated.

Their arrogance is born of ignorance. And rather than try to raise the level of debate, they want to bring it down to their level. Experts in their field are "elites", well-educated are reduced to "university types", advocates are "fringe-groups".

There is no desire to move Canada forward only dismantle it and strip it down. Isolate us from our former allies with high-handed foreign policy, and a refusal to co-operate. Base our laws on the Bible and our future on Biblical prophesy.

They have made Canadian politics so toxic that our very democracy is at risk. Secrecy is the order of the day and their media control is alarming.

This is a movement that was founded on anti-Semitism, nurtured on racism, and fueled by extremism. And every time a party they create is exposed, they simply re-invent themselves, but using the same old worn out parts. Social Credit - Reform - Alliance - Conservative. The only thing that really changes is the name.

And what will their legacy be? Will we even recognize this country when they're through? Can their damage be repaired?

People who once lived on the fringe, are now in control and they have aligned themselves with the most extreme elements, here and in the United States. It's frightening really, but it shows what happens when you don't pay attention.

Hopefully, you'll pay attention now.

Chapter One: Bold Moves

Sources:

1. Full text of Stephen Harper's 1997 speech, Canadian Press, December 14, 2005