"I think there is a role for [Pastor John Hagee]. He has earned a certain recognition with the community because of his support for Israel."

--Anti-Defamation League national director Abe Foxman, 3/9/07

"It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God's chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day..."

--Pastor John Hagee, "Jerusalem Countdown," pp. 92-93 ( note: there are many different editions of this book, so the page cite for the quoted text will be different for different printings of Hagee's book )

Is Pastor John Hagee, founder of the new and increasingly powerful lobbying group, CUFI  ( Christians United For Israel ), an anti-Semite ?

Some, such as journalist Max Blumenthal ( see below ) say yes, while others note that while Hagee's views, in sum, forms a composite that appears profoundly anti-semitic ( I have termed this "structural anti-Semitism" ) nonetheless most or all of Hagee's views can be found prefigured in  rabbinical opinion. Were the Nazis, as Hagee speculates, doing "God's work" ? Should anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust itself, be blamed on Jews themselves ? Such views may seem shocking but there is precedent, in certain remote corners of Judaic thought, for such ideas and so Hagee cannot be clearly labeled anti-semitic on those counts. And if, in Hagee's view, it is God's will that most or almost all Jews are soon to be wiped from the face of the Earth and Judaism itself vanish, is that belief anti-Semitic ? John Hagee, who also professes a deep love for Jews, now has a chance to translate his stated beliefs into action:

Recently, an astounding, apparent US government sponsored anti-Semitic display, on an enormous scale, has come to my attention ; the giant Swastika shaped building cluster at the US Navy's Coronado, California Naval Amphibious Base, built in the late 1960's, can be viewed from space, via Google Earth and while the architect who designed the structures said the shape was quite intentional, a US Navy spokesperson has declared the shape of the swastika building cluster to be an unfortunate accident....

[image, right: artifact of the Nazi-era Deutsche Cristen]

Meanwhile, two other building clusters near the swastika-cluster appear to symbolize crosses ; the concatenation of the cross and the swastika has an evil recent 20th Century history, as embodied in the history of the Nazi-era German Deutsche Cristen movement in which both German Protestant and Catholic Christianity began to fuse with Nazi ideology. The ultimate expression of such fusion came in the form of a "Nazi Bible", one copy of which has recently come to light.

Regardless of how the US Navy's enormous swastika-cum cross monument came to be, it is hard to escape the symbolism literally embodied, on a huge scale, at the Coronado Naval base ; it is hard to imagine how such blaring anti-semitic symbolism could be broadcast more loudly except if the United Sates government were to carve a giant swastika onto the face of the Moon. It's worth pointing out also, that the Coronado swastika-shaped building cluster is oriented at 45 degrees from true North, as the Nazi swastika was officially displayed during the Third Reich ; no doubt this is accidental, but it reinforces the grotesque quality of the inadvertant symbolism.

So, this unpleasant phenomenon seems to present a unique opportunity to test the sincerity of American Christian evangelicals who profess deep love of Israel and claim to abhor anti-Semitism. What will Pastor John Hagee and the leaders of the increasingly powerful pro-war, "pro-Israel' lobby of "Christians United For Israel", do about a US government sanctioned anti-semitic display that probably can be seen from Mars ?

In my open letter to John Hagee, CUFI, and CUFI's Executive Director David Brog ( which I will be sending to CUFI by registered mail ) I inform CUFI and it's leaders about the Coronado swastika and call for CUFI and John Hagee to capitalize on their growing political clout to call for bills in the US Senate and House of Representatives to requisition funds so that the US Navy has the money to structural alter the offending building complexes so as to remove the absurd and grotesque anti-Semitic displays they represent. Government sponsored Anti-Semitic displays were common in Nazi Germany and have no place whatsoever in US government building architecture and the issue of intent is wholly immaterial. The Coronado swastika and cross complexes represent a affront to the memories of Holocaust victims, their families, an Holocaust survivors everywhere ; if John Hagee, David Brog, and CUFI's leadership is truly committed to Jews they will divert some energy away from advocacy for an apocalyptic conflict involving a US attack on Iran and towards addressing, and removing, the symbolic blasphemy encoded in brick and mortar and on a vast scale at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, California. Otherwise, Jews everywhere will have ample reason for doubting CUFI's sincerity.

In his latest book, Texas megachurch Pastor and fast rising evangelical leader John Hagee has speculated that Hitler and the Nazis were ultimately part of God's plan, and doing God's work, by acting as God's "hunters" and forcing European Jews to flee to Palestine. Hagee also predicts that most Jews now living in Israel (and most Jews on Earth even) will soon die in an apocalyptic Mideast war, escalating into a Global war, that Hagee declares to be inevitable and divinely ordained. In 2006, in an apparent effort to spur on the apocalypse, Hagee founded "Christians United For Israel" (CUFI), an avowedly Pro-Israel "non-lobby" ( it's an eductional nonprofit, a 501c(3) ) that is building a national network to encourage the sort of bellicose, far-right US policies towards the Mideast that Hagee and his fellow Christian Zionists advocate. A key feature of CUFI's platform involves advocacy for a joint US/Israeli attack on Iran, and Hagee has written and spoken numerous times on how that will lead to a Global military conflagration that may also include the nuclear destruction of the East and West coasts of the United States.

Given the current distribution of Jews worldwide, the sort of apocalyptic global war Pastor John Hagee appears to have formed a "non-lobby" lobbying group to egg on includes scenarios in which the vast majority of Jews would be wiped from the Earth. In John Hagee's end-times vision, a tiny "remnant" of Jew would survive but be converted to Christianity but Judaism, as a world religion and cultural tradition, would be wiped from the face of the Earth.

Some, such as journalist Max Blumenthal, have described John Hagee as holding anti-semitic views and in a March 14, 2007 Huffington Post column Blumenthal characterized Hagee as an "anti-Semitic Holocaust apologist". Wrote Blumenthal:

It does not necessarily matter to AIPAC if you preach "New World Order/Illuminati" conspiracy theories involving "international bankers," a classic coded anti-Semitic trope. Nor does it necessarily matter to them if the rhetoric you have spewed about the Holocaust sounds like a Christian version of Mahmoud Ahmadenijad. AIPAC doesn't even necessarily care that you've lionized Yigal Amir, the assassin of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. What matters more to AIPAC and its allies -- all that matters perhaps -- is that you back the hardline Israeli government without reservation, support the institutionalized dehumanization of Palestinians and offer crucial moral support for the illegal usurpation of Palestinian land. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that you lust for war with Iran....

It should come as no surprise then that an anti-Semitic Holocaust apologist like Pastor John Hagee was invited to AIPAC, and was given a raucous ovation. As I reported for the Nation last year, through his new lobbying organization, Christians United for Israel, Hagee is emerging as the most influential leader of the Christian Zionist movement, which has bolstered the Israeli right with the grassroots muscle of the evangelical right. I go on to explain in detail that Hagee is a dangerous crackpot whose stated desire is to see Israel engage in an apocalyptic nuclear war with Iran.

So, is John Hagee, as Blumenthal asserts. anti-Semitic ? Pastor Hagee's, and CUFI's, response to the giant swastika and cross monument at the US Naval Base in Coranado, California provides a clear opportunity for Hagee, and CUFI, to put their money where their mouths are. As the crass popular saying goes, "money talks, and......" ; actions speak louder than words. Do CUFI's Christian zionists truly love Jews, or do they merely fetishize Jews ?

We will soon have the answer.

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