16 thoughts on “Jewish Forward Helps Hagee Wash Away His Sins – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. This piece having appeared not only in the Forward but also in Haaretz illustrates that the entire Israeli society is shifting toward the right, sharply, and that this article is meant to influence the opinions of the readers toward acceptance of the Netanyahu government’s agenda, which seems to mesh with Hagee’s sick vision.

  2. agreed, mary.

    i keep asking myself: what is happening to israel? what is happening to the jewish people? how has everything gotten so amped up, so out of control?

    i am deeply saddened.

    1. What is happening to Israel is destined to happen because the entire country is based on something inherently evil and wrong – the theft of Palestine from its people. Nothing based on falsehood can endure; and the oppression of the Palestinian people is a heavy debt that must be paid. Zionism is a flawed ideology and anything that it produces is flawed. The ship is sinking.

      1. “Nothing based on falsehood can endure…” Mary, that is a beautiful statement, but, alas, perhaps because I am much older and no doubt much more cynical, I must sadly comment that it is simply not so in reality. The countries of the Americas were founded in blood, theft, genocide. And they endure. Proponents of Israel love to point out that lands like the USA, Australia, New Zealand, were stolen from the aborigines, hence, no inhabitant of these countries should criticise Israel. With all the fanatical support, economic and spiritual, lavished upon Israel, it is highly doubtful that the SS Zionism is even leaking.

        1. You don’t know how old I am. Besides, we are not looking at a scale of 20 years, or 50 years. I see Israel heading west for the sunset, slowly but surely. It’s unraveling faster than anyone can knit it back together. The craziest people are running the country; the ideology of Zionism is proving to be racist and oppressive, and an utter failure. World opinion is turning away towards Israel, and rightly so. There cannot be a Jewish State because demographically and politically it is impossible. Sadly, at this point it appears that the next time Israel attacks anyone it is going to bring on World War III.

  3. RE: “Another concern that some individuals have expressed is that Christian Zionists will use our influence to stand in the way of efforts to advance a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Such a claim shows a complete disregard for our record.’ – Hagee, The Forward, posted 05/12/10
    HAGEE’S OWN WORDS AND ACTIONS JUST TWO MONTHS EARLIER: A Serial Obstructionist, By Rachel Tabachnick, ZEEK
    (EXCERPTS)…Shortly after Vice President Joe Biden’s arrival in Israel [on 03/08/10], Netanyahu and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat were the headliners at Pastor John Hagee’s two-hour Christians United for Israel (CUFI) extravaganza at the Jerusalem Convention Center….
    …Monday’s CUFI production was based on the concept of “biblical Zionism,” or the belief that God mandates nonnegotiable borders of Israel, and any leader or nation who thwarts this divine plan will be cursed. Before introducing Netanyahu, Hagee stated, “World leaders do not have the authority to tell Israel and the Jewish people what they can and can not do in Jerusalem.” He added, “Israel does not exist because of a decree of the United Nations in 1948. Israel exists because of a covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…The settlements are not the problem.”
    In his books and sermons Hagee has promoted a “greater Israel,” that will reclaim all of Israel’s former biblical territory, stating “In modern terms, Israel rightfully owns all of present-day Israel, all of Lebanon, half of Syria, two-thirds of Jordan, all of Iraq, and the northern portion of Saudi Arabia.”
    At the Jerusalem CUFI event Hagee described Ahmadinejad as the Hitler of the Middle East who could turn the world upside down in 24 hours, words similar to those he made when lobbying for the attack on Iraq…
    …During a performance by singer Dudu Fisher, the God TV camera panned to the audience and centered on Joel Bell, leader of Worldwide Biblical Zionists. WBZ is currently building a center in Sha’ar Benjamin for “facilitating absorption” of Christian Zionists into the West Bank. It was established after a joint meetingheld in Texas of the Board of Governors of World Likud led by Danny Danon, and World Evangelical Zionists led by Joel Bell. Speakers included ZOA’s Morton Klein….
    ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://zeek.forward.com/articles/116518/

    A VIDEO TRIBUTE TO “REVEREND” JOHN HAGEE
    There Will Be Blood – Daniel’s Baptism [03:38] – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwkP7Gnp7ek

  4. RE: “Other [Jews suspicious of us] posit that our Zionism is tied to an effort to speed the second coming of Jesus. [This] allegation is flat wrong…
    …The fact is that the vast majority of Christian Zionists and Evangelicals do not believe there is anything we can do to hasten the second coming of Jesus.” – Hagee

    HAGEE TRYING TO BREED A “PERFECT RED HEIFER” TO HASTEN THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST: Pastor Strangelove, by Sarah Posner, The American Prospect, 05/21/06
    (EXCERPT)…Besides his million-dollar compensation package, Hagee has a portfolio of other ventures, including a cattle ranch in south Texas that may have religious significance. Many evangelicals believe that the arrival of a “perfect red heifer” will signal the end times. In the Old Testament, burning a red heifer and sprinkling its ashes is described as a purification ritual for priests entering the temple. Ultra-orthodox Jews believe that the birth of a modern perfect red heifer will herald the arrival of the messiah, leading to a confrontation with Muslims over the Temple Mount, where Jews believe the Temple will be rebuilt. Some evangelicals likewise regard the red heifer as a harbinger of the ultimate showdown at the Temple Mount, which they believe will be the site of the Second Coming. And they believe that time is near.
    To many other observers, the advent of the red heifer threatens to provoke a violent struggle for control of the Temple Mount, with worldwide repercussions. In the late 1990s, a group of unidentified Texas ranchers reportedly bred a perfect red heifer, which generated excitement in evangelical circles until the animal sprouted some black hairs.
    Six years ago, the John C. Hagee Royalty Trust paid more than $5.5 million for a 7,600-acre ranch in Brackettville, Texas, where cattle are raised in a venture with the Texas Israel Agricultural Research Foundation, a nonprofit outfit operated by the pastor…Earl said that Hagee wants to share information to improve the production of livestock, particularly cattle, with an Israeli research project, but otherwise claimed to be unsure of the particulars. Dr. Scott Farhart, an obstetrician and trustee of the John C. Hagee Royalty Trust (and an elder at Hagee’s church), did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the director of the ranch…
    ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=11541

  5. RE: “Perhaps he is most notoriously known for embracing an End Times narrative that calls for two-thirds of the Jewish people to be killed and the remaining one-third to come to Jesus to be reborn in the blood of the Christian lamb.” – Silverstein
    FEAR NOT, FOR NOW YOU CAN ‘REST EASY’: ‘Dual Covenant’ Christians ~ Christian Zionists and the strangest alliance in history, by Jon Basil Utley, Counterpunch, 08/02/06
    (EXCERPT) The major internal conflict for the strangest alliance in history is about what will happen to Jews who don’t convert to evangelical Christianity. The Armageddonites, those 30 million Americans who happily see Mideast chaos as hastening their one-way trip to paradise, are being increasingly questioned about the fate of Jews whom they urge to help fulfill the prophecies.
    Once their death wish agenda is realized, the end-of-the-worlders believe that Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims (of course), other Christians (apparently including Catholics and Orthodox), and all the rest of humanity will be killed. But the born-again will be “raptured” to Heaven. 
    Now some enterprising Texans have “resolved” the big question. The Jews God kills will go to a parallel heaven, “their” kind of heaven, to enjoy eternity alongside the good Christians. The Jewish heaven will presumably be what “they” would like, perhaps different from the evangelical heaven, where there will be “no booze, no bars, and no need to mow the grass on one’s lawn,” according to a popular Gaither Singers song. (The fact that the Jewish faith has no afterlife at all similar to the Christian one is irrelevant, nor do the faithful Texans probably even know it.) It is called the “dual covenant theory” – the belief that Jews and Christians have separate deals with God. However, Muslims, Hindus, and others have no deal….
    ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.antiwar.com/utley/?articleid=9456

    1. The above article by Mr. Utley is from Antiwar.com rather than Counterpunch.com as I indicated. Please consider my error proof that I am a human (and a very mistake-prone one at that).

      1. It sounds like another form of censorship, to limit feedback on an article that way. The Forward knows that people would have had plenty to say about the phony Hagee.

  6. To Richard Silverstein,

    I received your email early Saturday morning asking to speak with me, and intended to contact you on Sunday, until I read your post of Saturday night titled “Jewish Forward helps Hagee wash away his sins.” Having read your smashmouth treatment of the Forward I saw no point in responding to your request, not even after your second email, on Sunday evening, asking for “an opportunity to hear your side of the matter before I publish.” A peculiar sequence.

    But your readers deserve better. I would guess that many of them would welcome a clear expression of John Hagee’s views on issues of concern to Jews in particular, though not only to us. It’s precisely because the op-ed in question is so markedly different in tone and emphasis compared to some of Pastor Hagee’s previous statements that it bears serious consideration by the audience it was addressed to. To be sure, the piece should raise questions in the minds of knowledgeable readers, about the evolution of the author’s own thinking about these issues, about the differences between his views and those of some other spokesmen for Christian Zionists and evangelicals, and indeed about how those views will inform the positions that Pastor Hagee and Christians United for Israel will be taking in the months ahead. I’m proud of our editors’ decision to run the op-ed and eager to see where it takes us. Your readers and ours can be sure that the Forward will continue to report on this subject, and that we’ll continue to do so independent of the forces and agendas arrayed on these issues inside and outside the Jewish community.

    I cannot speak for Zeek. We have a co-marketing agreement with Zeek and as part of that arrangement we host that publication on our web site, TheJewishDailyForward.com. That brings the editorial offerings of each publication to the attention of the other’s online readership, but they have no say about our editorial judgments and we have no say about theirs.

    Finally, I want to correct just one error of fact in your post, for the record. Neither Daniel Treiman nor anyone else at the Forward removed the comments that had been posted to the Hagee op-ed. We’re still trying to understand how that happened, and how a second, identical version of the op-ed was posted for several days, before we removed it. Our tech team have reason to doubt that it was the result of foul play; they are looking into whether an improper character in one of the tags or in the text of a comment could have taken down the connection between this piece and our commenting system. We’re working to restore that connection.

    Samuel Norich, Publisher, The Forward

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