The Circular Dangers of John Hagee, AIPAC and Netanyahu

This week, in his May 4, 2009 Christians United for Israel (CUFI) newsletter, John Hagee continues to invoke his brand of Christian foreign policy:

“God makes it clear that He will bring into judgment any nation, America included, that forces the division of the land of Israel.  That also includes the division of Jerusalem.”

What he says should no longer matter but sadly, that is not the case. Residing at the very core of the intractability in the Israel/Palestine crisis are the circular relationships that exist between Hagee, CUFI, the Netanyahu administration and AIPAC. 

It doesn’t take a trained psychologist to understand why Jews operate on a constant hair-trigger.  Thousands of years of persecution will do that to a people.  It is why Israelis recently voted in right winger Binyamin Netanyahu and why he, in turn, was compelled to name avowed racist Avigdor Lieberman, founder of far-right Yisrael Beitenu  (Israel Our Home party, whose electoral base are the immigrants from the former Soviet Union) as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of Israel.

With Israelis constantly being warned that their country faces the greatest of all existential threats from Iran, and by proxy, from Palestine, it is understandable that their psychological warning systems flash code red, while they hold their collective noses and accept John Hagee’s help, all the while adhering to the standard meme, “We need all the friends we can get.”  Forget Faust and his sinister bargain. He’s practically a piker next to Hagee, a man who quivers with excitement in hope of the end of the world.

It is the manipulation of fear, far too reminiscent of our own recent dance with the unjustified, pre-emptive and wholly catastrophic war with Iraq which poses the true danger to Israel.  Realistically speaking, Israel is the fifth most powerful nation on earth when it comes to nuclear weaponry.  Ahmadinejad might be a raving lunatic but the Iranian people have no desire to see their country disappear in a blaze of nuclear glory, right- wing ideologues excluded.  

Had fear not ruled the day in Bush’s post 9/11 world, had Condi Rice not warned of mushroom clouds and Colin Powell not PowerPoint-ed his way to the “proof” that we faced multiple, non-existent bio-weapons mobile labs, we would be in a very different place today.  Alas, “mistakes” were made and “stuff happens.” Why is it though that we, and Israel, have learned nothing from calamities so fresh, we have yet to find our way out?

Re-enter, John Hagee who continues his work on a semi-stealth basis.  I say stealth, but that is only if you’re not looking.  Hagee and his Jewish emissary, David Brog, continually blanket the Christian air and netwaves, not to mention whatever waves there are up on Capitol Hill, delivering whatever message the particular audience du jour calls for.  To the Jews, they say “Never again,” while End-Timers are treated to promises of eternal salvation once biblical prophecy is fulfilled and all of God’s Israel re-peopled with the Hebrews.  After all, he read it in The Book of Revelation.  It is this Rapture-filled prophecy that allows Hagee to raise and fund the populization of the disputed territories using Jewish emigrants from Russia and Ethiopia, Jews who have committed themselves to rise up against the Israeli Defense Force before they would ever bow to what they see as expulsion from their God-given land, the illegal settlements. To our legislators up on the Hill, the CUFI lobby lobs its not-so- veiled voting bloc threats as its adherents deliver John Hagee’s words:

“America should not pressure Israel to give up land and America must never pressure Israel to divide the City of Jerusalem. . .”

It was Hermann Goering who said, “Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”   Are these words so very different from those John Hagee delivered as keynote speaker to an enraptured audience at the 2007 Annual AIPAC Convention?

“I am concerned that in the coming months yet another attempt will be made to parcel out parts of Israel in a futile effort to appease Israel’s enemies in the Middle East. I believe that misguided souls in Europe, I believe that the misguided souls in the political brothel that is now the United Nations and sadly – and sadly even our own State Department will try once again to turn Israel into crocodile food. . .”

All of this is nothing less than a call to arms and one which the Netanyahu gang is only too eager to answer with the full backing and support of John Hagee and AIPAC.  With friends like these, one wonders, who needs enemies?