To his credit, Arizona Senator John McCain, the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee, quickly threw Hagee off the bus; this despite having spent a year courting the pastor for his endorsement.

However, the condemnation hasn't been universal. A number of fellow Christian conservatives and Jewish leaders have rushed to defend the beleaguered pastor. While last year Hagee was treated like royalty at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he prudently chose not to attend this year's meeting earlier this month. Nevertheless, when his name was brought up by CUFI executive director David Brog, "the crowd broke into a lengthy round of applause, ending in a standing ovation," the Jewish Daily Forward reported.  

From July 21-24, Hagee's Christians United For Israel will be holding its third annual "summit" in Washington, D.C. Among the scheduled speakers are Gary Bauer, a CUFI Board Member and longtime religious right activist and president of American Values, former Republican senator Rick Santorum, Charles Jacobs of the David Project, conservative columnist Dennis Prager, the ubiquitous William Kristol, Israel's ambassador to the United States, Sallai Meridor, Brad Gordon, Co-Director of Policy and Government Affairs at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Daniel Pipes, and Senator Joseph Lieberman.

Leonard Fein, in a Jewish Daily Forward piece titled "Our Hagee Problem Has Yet To Be Addressed" asked: "How many of these [the scheduled speakers at the CUFI conference] will now, in light of the new information about Hagee's beliefs, cancel out? Or will they twist and turn to rationalize their continuing support for this false witness?"

Despite pleas not to attend the Washington meeting from a number of organizations, including the newly formed Jewish group J Street -- which has partnered with Democracy for America in an effort called "Say It Ain't So, Joe" -- Lieberman appears, as of this writing, steadfast in his willingness to stand with Hagee.  

Some of the other guests are also being asked to forgo attending the conference as well. At the same time, Hagee's pals are urging their followers to go to Washington and support the embattled preacher.

With his feet firmly planted in the camp of Senator Lieberman, Daniel Pipes, who is described by SourceWatch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy, as someone that "identif[ies] and denounce[s]what he sees as radical Muslim penetration of American institutions," announced that he will address the conference.  

Pipes responded to Fein's questions on his blog: "No twisting and no turning here, Mr. Fein. I plan to speak, as scheduled, at the conference." Pipes added that it "is inconceivable that I should repudiate Pastor Hagee, or his organization, because of his theological interpretations. He is not my spiritual guide but an ally in the political effort to help Israel survive and prosper. I do not expect to share a total outlook with my allies, nor do I need to examine their belief systems. It suffices that we work together for a common cause."

And on a recent visit to Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" program, Pipes defended Hagee, saying that he "is someone who is not at the extremes of American life, who is dealing with and close to or endorsed by those who hate the United States. This is someone who's a patriot."

' ... he made one comment, taken out of context about Hitler, that some liberal blogger says makes him anti-Semitic," says Stephen Strang

In defending Hagee, Stephen Strang, the president and CEO of Strang Communications, founder of "Charisma" magazine, president and chairman of Christian Life Missions, publisher of "The Strang Report" and regional director for CUFI, wrote that "Hagee has done more than any other Christian in our generation to show love to the Jews and to stand strong with Israel. Yet he made one comment, taken out of context about Hitler, that some liberal blogger says makes him anti-Semitic."

One comment?

One comment as Strang alleges? Bruce Wilson, the investigative journalist who first put together the video of Hagee's Hitler sermon, has uncovered more anti-Jewish material tucked away in the Hagee archives.

In an e-mail interview, Wilson told Inter Press Service that all of the Hagee material that he has been "writing about and making videos (short documentary videos in some cases) of has come from material that Hagee has mass marketed himself, mostly from his sermons." Wilson said that he recently "found some free copies of MP3's of Hagee's sermons online, and the `God sent Hitler' clip came from those. Last month," Wilson added, "I bought a CD on eBay that contained several dozen Hagee sermons."

According to Wilson, at Hagee's Cornerstone Church in San Antonio on three consecutive Sundays in March 2003, the pastor delivered "sermons heavily loaded with anti-Jewish memes, stereotypes, slurs and conspiracy theories, one of which was almost identical to what was perhaps Adolph Hitler's favorite conspiracy theory, which alleged that an international Jewish banking cabal, led by the Jewish Rothschild banking family, controls the fates of entire nation, even the progression of world events and history, through the manipulation of global money markets."

The three sermons -- delivered on the eve of, and just after, the invasion of Iraq -- were packaged and sold as "Iraq: The Final War." "The series was at least sold through Hagee's Cornerstone Church bi-monthly magazine and also via the Internet, off John Hagee's Cornerstone Church/John Hagee Ministries website," Wilson reported.  

Wilson claims that Hagee's sermons are part of a distinct and "deeply disturbing pattern." He notes that Hagee's Cornerstone Church members have sung "Blow The Trumpet In Zion" at CUFI's "signature event," the "Night To Honor Israel" "with scripture drawn from the Second Book of Joel, Chapter 2, verses 1-11. That scripture, according to ... Hagee's own scriptural exegesis in John Hagee's `Prophecy Study Bible'  ... concerns prophecy forecasting the invasion and `desolation' of Israel expected by Hagee and his church flock, which is divided into twelve administrative units each named for a Tribe of Israel."

Although the preaching of Hagee and other conservative Christian evangelicals has been going on for decades, "Few in the American Jewish community, or the Israeli Jewish community, grasp the magnitude of the anti-Jewish hatred that has been stoked, from American pulpits and American televangelist broadcast networks," Wilson recently wrote. "The propaganda has been slightly coded but in the end not very subtle. Rather than directly vilify Jews, Christian fundamentalist preachers and leaders have for decades vilified groups and terms that traditionally, for better or worse, have been associated with Jews."

While some Jewish leaders reject out of hand the End Times theories that sees Israel as the final battleground before the return of Christ, others prefer to look away, sometimes even laughing off the loopier aspects of these apocalyptic visions on the one hand, while accepting millions of dollars of support for their favorite Israel charities and powerful political network the Christian Zionists have built.  

Bruce Wilson's research, and the attendant publicity it generated, has likely forced Hagee to the sidelines for the bulk of the presidential campaign. When asked whether his new discoveries will lead to the severing of ties between Hagee and some of his most fervent Jewish supporters, Wilson told IPS that "were they to get anything close to the same level of media play as the `God sent Hitler' video it might. Barring that, it would probably take something even more shocking to cause such a rift."

Will Lieberman and Pipes continue backing Hagee regardless of what other anti-Jewish commentaries might be discovered? Will CUFI continue to escalate its push for the Bush Administration to deal militarily with Iran?  These questions might be answered when CUFI members flock to Washington next month.