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