This week in Washington, DC, AIPAC is hosting its annual policy conference. It will be an illustrious affair. Heavy-hitters from both American political parties will be in attendance, as will scholars and activists from Israel and the US. But one name is noticeably absent from the three-day program. John Hagee - who in three years has transformed CUFI into a grassroots pro-Israel movement that dwarfs AIPAC in size - is not on the program. And this is a horrible thing.

AIPAC's decision to shun Hagee says something terrible about the state of American Jewish politics today. Quite simply, Hagee has become a victim of liberal American Jewish leaders' decision to place their leftist political preferences above their concern for Israel's survival and for the well-being of American Jewry.

Glick claims that Hagee was targeted simply to move attention away from Jeremiah Wright, and that he was chosen because of his "avowedly anti-homosexual, anti-abortion views". Glick sees the Hagee issue as having been raised by Democrats who wished to undermine McCain; the reality, of course, was that it was raised primarily by religious-right watchers who were alarmed that an apocalyptically-obsessed conspiracy-monger such as Hagee should glean any sort of credibility from mainstream political leaders. Glick's piece was datelined 2 June, so perhaps she was unaware of Hagee's most recently discovered comments on the Jewish aspects of Hitler, Marx, and the coming gay anti-Christ.

Backing Avital's position is British-Israeli Daniel Levy of The New America Foundation. He adds:

New York Democrat Eliot Engel should also be called to task for agreeing to appear at the CUFI Summit (and he is still scheduled to do so)...Decent elected officials who reject Hagee's brand of bigotry and Armageddonist, pro-Israelism should take their cue from Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN), who declined to speak at a CUFI sponsored so-called "Night to Honor Israel" because "well-publicized statements by Pastor Hagee demonstrate extremism, bigotry and intolerance that is repugnant."