John Hagee and the Jews...

Well, what little respect I had for Yitzchok Adlerstein of Cross-Loving Currents is all but gone. Why? Because he, like the other fools at Cross-Loving Currents (you know, Toby Katz, Yaakov Menken, Avi Shafran, etc.) has jumped on the "John Hagee Is a Great Friend of the Jews and Israel" bandwagon. And so, he works VERY hard to try and excuse Hagee's Holocaust remarks:

John Hagee doesn't have an anti-Semitic bone in his body, despite what he said about the Holocaust. It is a shame that John McCain saw fit to distance himself from him.

Reverend John Hagee may just be the single most important non-Jewish friend of Israel in the United States today. His reach is huge. He backs up his love for Israel with action. He is the founder and chairman of Christians United For Israel (CUFI), which runs large rallies for Israel across the length and breadth of America. Any legislator who might even think of voting against Israel's interests can receive literally millions of irate emails from concerned Christians.

John Hagee does not have to demonstrate his love for Jews and Israel. He's done that, many times over. His comments about the Holocaust are indeed problematic, but they must be seen in the context of his firm belief in history as the unfolding of G-d's Will.

Hagee spoke about a favorite topic of his: the creation of the State of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. G-d wanted so much for Jews to lay claim to their land by leaving Europe for the Middle East, that he unleashed the Holocaust, which left them no option but to establish their state.

"Then G-d 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 G-d allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because G-d said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel."

Hagee was accused of calling Jews sub-human (only animals are hunted), and exonerating Hitler (since he was sent by G-d.) Hagee, of course, meant no such thing, any more than Pharoah was exonerated by G-d when He foretold the Egyptian oppression to Abraham.

Of course, Adlerstein DOES say Hagee is wrong. He is wrong in believing he understands WHY the Holocaust took place:

Living with questions is exasperating, but better than inventing answers that do not work (limiting G-d) or that cannot be demonstrated (finding patterns in history and insisting that we have discovered Divine truth). This is where we must part company with our good friend Reverend Hagee. We share his certainty concerning G-d's role in history; we cannot share his certainty about understanding the whys and wherefores of that role — and the awful toll Rev. Hagee's understanding would take on our conception of His mercy.

But, of course, not in his "love" for the Jewish people. Of that, Adlerstein has NO doubt, as he stated at the beginning of the article:

Reverend John Hagee may just be the single most important non-Jewish friend of Israel in the United States today. His reach is huge. He backs up his love for Israel with action. He is the founder and chairman of Christians United For Israel (CUFI), which runs large rallies for Israel across the length and breadth of America. Any legislator who might even think of voting against Israel's interests can receive literally millions of irate emails from concerned Christians.

John Hagee does not have to demonstrate his love for Jews and Israel. He's done that, many times over.

Hm. RIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGHHHHHHTTTTTTT...

Never mind the ideology behind his "love" for the Jewish people, the one that states that for the Apocalypse to take place and for "good" (read - "true Christians") to triumph over "evil" (read - "everyone else"), the Holy Land must be in the hands of non-Infidels, a category into which Jews neatly fall...

It never, ever ceases to amaze me how these RWNJs (Right Wing Nut Jobs) find a seemingly inexhaustible supply of defense for a bunch of anti-Semitic bigots and pigs, even when they are troubled by remarks made by those same anti-Semitic bigots and pigs. Just fascinating. Really!
Read the full article, if you can stomach it...