A quick update on John Hagee: According to various reports , Joe Lieberman is planning an encore at this July’s Christian United for Israel “summit” in Washington, delivering the keynote address. Last year he spoke at the same event and called Hagee an “ish elohim,” a man of God, comparing him to Moses.
John McCain finally had the good sense to drop Hagee, at least publicly; Joe is still ready to give his seal of kashrut to a brand of support for Israel that includes explaining the Holocaust as God’s way of chasing the Jews back to the Land. (In that light, it’s not surprising that Hagee does not want Israel to give up West Bank land for peace. Why should a few more Jewish shahids matter?)
Also reportedly scheduled to appear at Hagee’s fest is Rep. Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat whose district includes Riverdale.
J Street is running an online petition campaign to convince Lieberman not to go. Here’s the link . If you live in Riverdale, you might want to drop a line to Rep. Engel about his plans.
While I’m on the subject, I should explain why I oppose political alliances with Hagee, while favoring negotiations with Syria or even Hamas. It’s simple: You create alliance with friends, with people whose views roughly align with yours, whose goals you do not mind legitimizing by your alliance. You sometimes negotiate with bitter opponents, as way of adjudicating conflict without resorting to arms. In the latter case, your attitude is “suspect him and respect him,” as the Hebrew expression goes; and you know that if all diplomatic options fail, it may be necessary to conduct policy by other means.
Various US presidents were willing to negotiate with Soviet leaders. It didn’t mean that they sought their endorsement in the next elections, or that they wanted to be the keynote speaker at the next CP convention. They engaged in diplomacy to avoid unnecessary war.
Wow to think I voted for Joe.I thought he believed in the party .I guess he wants to be a guest at the ” haters” party. Say it isn’t so Joe and redeem your self -respect. And while your at it give a blast at the wrong Rev.Parsley over there in Columbus ,Ohio who tells all us uninformed Christians that his Christ wants us all to wipe out the infidel Moslems ;all 1.5 billion of them.Seems like John Mc Bush doesn’t want to reject him either.
I’m amazed that intelligent Jews could be brought in by this corpulent windbag. I’ve always considered most Jews to be several cuts above these morons. Hey Joe” if you lie down with dogs you wake up with fleas” or ” don’t look for friends in all the wrong places” I saw these spastics pushing and shoving everybody out of their way and monopolizing the holy sites like lemmings in Israel in March.The Ugly American returns and he is just obnoxious but now he is united for Israel ” give me a break” I’m sure hardly any of them spent any money on their own in places like Haifa or Tel Aviv or talked to Israelis one to one who weren’t their tour guides. They would rather drool over alledged Christian holy sites which have minimal archeological support ( form over substance) than follow the rather simple message of JC not the literal interpretation of some fanatics.
He made sense then, and he would make sense today.
“You don’t make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.”
Yitzhak Rabin
I could understand Holy Joe Lieberman. He is a bitter man who thinks his God abandoned him for Ned Lamont. He will be baptized by Hagee in front of a huge audience and that will be that. When more Democrats reach the Senate, he will be relegated to the sub-sub-subcommittee on Antarctic blubber production. Elliott Engel is another question. What does he think hanging with Hagee is going to get him? Riverdale is becoming more and more frum as time goes on and hanging with someone who thinks Jesus is going to slaughter the Jews is not a Jewish ooccupation.
The only good that can come of this is the growing awareness of the baleful influence Hagee has on Israeli politics and a wish for him to turn into a pillar of salt.