Cluster Bombs in Lebanon, Gaza, One-State Solution and Christian Zionism
September 20th, 2006 Jewish Peace News now has over 14,500 direct subscribers, and is forwarded and re-printed widely to many thousands more. Please help us keep this valuable service going. Click here to donate now and help us bring a just and lasting peace closer to realization. Help us spread a deeper understanding of events in the Middle East. Click here to let your friends know about JPN. The views expressed here are those of the editors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Jewish Voice for Peace. Today's Contents: Deadly Harvest: The Lebanese Fields Sown with Cluster Bombs (The Independent) Patrick Cockburn on the million bomblets still littering Lebanon Why Israel Will Never Truly Let Go of Gaza (The Independent Weekly) Tanya Reinhart on the strategic value of Israel's continued onslaught of Gaza The Great Escape (Ha'aretz) Daniel Gavron on the impossibility of disengaging from Palestinians Birth Pangs of the New Christian Zionism (Nation) Max Blumenthal on the growing alliance between rightwing Jewish Zionists and Christian Zionists
More Important Articles Links to other important news articles for today [JPN Commentary: Even saying that the fields are sown with cluster bombs is an understatement, since the bomblets are embedded in trees, are on roofs, are everywhere outdoors...And because they are small, it's hard to see them before it's too late. This is beyond enraging and horrifying. I can't conjure up any kind of rational thinking which would allow the meting out of such punishment on anyone. - RG]
18 September 2006 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1616665.ece The Independent The war in Lebanon has not ended. Every day, some of the million bomblets which were fired by Israeli artillery during the last three days of the conflict kill four people in southern Lebanon and wound many more. The casualty figures will rise sharply in the next month as villagers begin the harvest, picking olives from trees whose leaves and branches hide bombs that explode at the smallest movement. Lebanon's farmers are caught in a deadly dilemma: to risk the harvest, or to leave the produce on which they depend to rot in the fields. In a coma in a hospital bed in Nabatiyeh lies Hussein Ali Ahmad, a 70-year-old man from the village of Yohmor. He was pruning an orange tree outside his house last week when he dislodged a bomblet; it exploded, sending pieces of shrapnel into his brain, lungs and kidneys. "I know he can hear me because he squeezes my hand when I talk to him," said his daughter, Suwad, as she sat beside her father's bed in the hospital. At least 83 people have been killed by cluster munitions since the ceasefire, according to independent monitors. Some Israeli officers are protesting at the use of cluster bombs, each containing 644 small but lethal bomblets, against civilian targets in Lebanon. A commander in the MLRS (multiple launch rocket systems) unit told the Israeli daily Haaretz that the army had fired 1,800 cluster rockets, spraying 1.2 million bomblets over houses and fields. "In Lebanon, we covered entire villages with cluster bombs," he said. "What we did there was crazy and monstrous." What makes the cluster bombs so dangerous is that 30 per cent of the bomblets do not detonate on impact. They can lie for years - often difficult to see because of their small size, on roofs, in gardens, in trees, beside roads or in rubbish - waiting to explode when disturbed. In Nabatiyeh, the modern 100-bed government hospital has received 19 victims of cluster bombs since the end of the war. As we arrived, a new patient, Ahmad Sabah, a laboratory technician at the hospital, was being rushed into the emergency room. A burly man of 45, he was unconscious on a stretcher. Earlier in the morning, he had gone up to the flat roof of his house to check the water tank. While there, he must have touched a pile of logs he was keeping for winter fires. Unknown to him, a bomblet had fallen into the woodpile a month earlier. The logs shielded him from the full force of the blast, but when we saw him, doctors were still trying to find out the extent of his injuries. "For us, the war is still going on, though there was a cease-fire on 14 August," said Dr Hassan Wazni, the director of the hospital. "If the cluster bombs had all exploded at the time they landed, it would not be so bad, but they are still killing and maiming people." The bomblets may be small, but they explode with devastating force. On the morning of the ceasefire, Hadi Hatab, an 11-year old boy, was brought dying to the hospital. "He must have been holding the bomb close to him," Dr Wazni said. "It took off his hands and legs and the lower part of his body." We went to Yohmor to find where Hussein Ali Ahmad had received his terrible wounds while pruning his orange tree. The village is at the end of a broken road, six miles south of Nabatiyeh, and is overlooked by the ruins of Beaufort Castle, a crusader fortress on a ridge above the deep valley along which the Litani river runs. Israeli bombs and shells have turned about a third of the houses in Yohmor into concrete sandwiches, one floor falling on top of another under the impact of explosions. Some families camp in the ruins. Villagers said that they were most worried by the cluster bombs still infesting their gardens, roofs and fruit trees. In the village street, were the white vehicles of the Manchester-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG), whose teams are trying to clear the bomblets. It is not an easy job. Whenever members of one of the MAG teams finds and removes a bomblet, they put a stick, painted red on top and then yellow, in the ground. There are so many of these sticks that it looks as if some sinister plant had taken root and is flourishing in the village. "The cluster bombs all landed in the last days of the war," said Nuhar Hejazi, a surprisingly cheerful 65-year-old woman. "There were 35 on the roof of our house and 200 in our garden so we can't visit our olive trees." People in Yohmor depend on their olive trees and the harvest should begin now before the rains, but the trees are still full of bomblets. "My husband and I make 20 cans of oil a year which we need to sell," Mrs Hejazi says. "Now we don't know what to do." The sheer number of the bomblets makes it almost impossible to remove them all. Frederic Gras, a de-mining expert formerly in the French navy, who is leading the MAG teams in Yohmor, says: "In the area north of the Litani river, you have three or four people being killed every day by cluster bombs The Israeli army knows that 30 per cent of them do not explode at the time they are fired so they become anti-personnel mines." Why did the Israeli army do it? The number of cluster bombs fired must have been greater than 1.2 million because, in addition to those fired in rockets, many more were fired in 155mm artillery shells. One Israeli gunner said he had been told to "flood" the area at which they were firing but was given no specific targets. M. Gras, who personally defuses 160 to 180 bomblets a day, says this is the first time he seen cluster bombs used against heavily populated villages. An editorial in Haaretz said that the mass use of this weapon by the Israeli Defence Forces was a desperate last-minute attempt to stop Hizbollah's rocket fire into northern Israel. Whatever the reason for the bombardment, the villagers in south Lebanon will suffer death and injury from cluster bomb as they pick their olives and oranges for years to come.
[JPN Commentary: Tanya Reinhart is an Israeli scholar and comentator. Her new book: "A Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine since 2003, is due for release this month. In the article below she writes: "The problem is that one cannot let Gaza free if one wants to keep the West Bank. A third of the Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip. If they area given freedom, they would become the centre of the Palestinian struggle for liberation, with free access to the Western and Arab world. To control the West Bank, Israel needs full control of Gaza." - In other words: The attack on Gaza has nothing to do with the capture of Gilad Shalit: this has just provided the pretext for the massive bombing etc., (in the same way that the capture of Israeli soldiers on the North border wasn't the reason for the war on Lebanon). - RG]
Why Israel will never Truly let go of Gaza by Tanya Reinhart
9-15 September http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0046197.html The Independent Weekly (Adelaide, Australia) Whatever the fate of the captive soldier Gilad Shalit, the Israeli armys war in Gaza is not about him. As senior security analyst Alex Fishman reported, the army was preparing for an attack months earlier and was constantly pushing for it, with the goal of destroying the Hamas infrastructure and its Government. The army initiated an escalation on June 8 when it assassinated Abu Samhadana, a senior appointee of the Hamas Government, and intensified its shelling of civilians in the Gaza Strip. Governmental authorisation for action on a larger scalae was already given by June 12, but it was postponed in the wake of the global reverberation caused by the killing of civilians in the air force bombing the next day. The abduction of the soldier released the safety-catch and the operation began on June 28, with the destruction of the infrastructure in Gaza and the mass detention of the Hamas leadership in the West Bank, which was also planned weeks in advance. In Israeli discourse, Israel ended the occupation in Gaza when it evacuated its settlers from the Strip and the Palestinians behaviour therefore constitutes ingratitude. But there is nothing further from reality than this description. In fact, as was already stipulated in the Disengagement Plan, Gaza remained under complete Israeli military control, operating from outside. Israel prevented any possibility of economic independence for the Strip and from the very beginning, Israel did not implement a single one of the clauses of the agreement on border-crossings of November 2005. Israel simply substituted the expensive occupation of Gaza with a cheap occupation, one which in Israels view exempts it from the occupiers responsibility to maintain the Strip, and from concern for the welfare and the lives of its 1.5 million residents, as determined in the fourth Geneva convention. Israel does not need this piece of land, one of the most densely populated in the world, and lacking any natural resources. The problem is that one cannot let Gaza free if one wants to keep the West Bank. A third of the Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip. If they area given freedom, they would become the centre of the Palestinian struggle for liberation, with free access to the Western and Arab world. To control the West Bank, Israel needs full control of Gaza. The new form of control Israel has developed is turning the whole of the Strip into a prison camp completely sealed from the world. Besieged, occupied people with nothing to hope for and no alternative means of political struggle will always seek ways to fight their oppressor. The imprisoned Gaza Palestinians found a way to disturb the life of the Israelis in the vicinity of the Strip, by launching homemade Qassam rockets across the Gaza wall against Israeli towns bordering the Strip. These primitive rockets lack the precision to focus on a target, and have rarely caused Israeli casualties; they do, however, cause physical and psychological damage and seriously disturb the targeted Israeli neighbourhoods. In the eyes of many Palestinians, the Qassams are a response to the war Israel has declared on them. As a student from Gaza said to the New York Times: Why should we be the only ones who live in fear? With these rockets, the Israelis feel fear too. We will have to live in peace together, or live in fear together. The mightiest army in the Middle East has no military answer to these homemade rockets. One answer that presents itself is what Hamas has been proposing all along, and Palestinian leader Ismail Haniyeh repeated last month a comprehensive ceasefire. Hamas has proven already that it can keep its word. In the 17 months since it announced its decision to abandon armed struggle in favour of political struggle, and declared a unilateral ceasefire (tahdiya calm), it did not participate in the launching of Qassams, except under severe Israeli provocation, as happened in the June escalation. However, Hamas remains committed to political struggle against the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. In Israels view, the Palestinian election results are a disaster, because for the first time they have a leadership that insists on representing Palestinian interests rather than just collaborating with Israels demands. Since ending the occupation is the one thing that Israel is not willing to consider, the option promoted by the army is breaking the Palestinians by devastating brutal force. They should be starved, bombarded, terrorised with sonic booms for months, until they understand that rebellion is futile and accepting prison life is their only hope for staying alive. Their elected political system, institutions and police should be destroyed. In Israels vision, Gaza should be ruled by gangs collaborating with the prison warders. The Israeli army is hungry for war. It would not let concerns for captive soldiers stand in its way. Since 2002, the army has argued that an operation along the lines of Defensive Shield in Jenin was also necessary in Gaza. Just over a year ago, on July 15 (before the Disengagement) the army concentrated forces on the border of the Strip for an offensive of this scale on Gaza. But then the US imposed a veto. Secretary of State Rice arrived for an emergency visit that was described as acrimonious and stormy, and the army was forced to back down. Now, the time has finally come. With the Islamophobia of the American administration at a high point, it appears that the US is prepared to authorise such an operation, on condition that it not provoke a global outcry with excessively reported attacks on civilians. With the green light for the offensive given, the armys only concern is public image. Fishman reported recently that the army is worried that what threatens to bury this huge military and diplomatic effort is reports of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Hence, the army would take care to let some food into Gaza. From this perspective, it is necessary to feed the Palestinians in Gaza so that it would be possible to continue to kill them undisturbed.
[JPN Commentary: The following Op-Ed is by veteran Israeli journalist Daniel Gavron, who is author of fictional works as well as several books on Israeli history, including a history of the kibbutz movement, an account of the political legacy of Menachem Begin ("Israel After Begin"), and a history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict ("The Other Side of Despair"). Here he reiterates his support for a so-called single-state solution, in which Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews would live together in a multiethnic democratic state. The focus of his most recent essay here, however, is not to propose solutions but to criticize the continuing refusal of Israelis to confront the obvious: that there is no way to forget the Palestinians' plight nor the conflict with them that continues to roil the region. The latest proposal to bring in an international peace-keeping force to patrol the Occupied Territories is one more instance, he argues, of Israelis refusing to acknowledge the inescapable fact of a shared existence. To engage seriously with the Palestinians in pursuit of a negotiated solution is the only way to solve the conflict, despite self-serving claims that there is no "partner for peace." Gavron's comments throw into critical perspective the recent Israeli rejection of talks with a Palestinian unity government comprising Hamas and Fatah. Refusing to speak with one's declared enemy, as Gavron remarks, cannot hasten peace. -LS]
The Great Escape by Daniel Gavron
September 17, 2006 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/763276.html There is something obsessive about our current compulsion to tinker with the framework of our governing bodies: a state commission of inquiry, a restructuring of our governance, the merging of the Prime Minister's Office and the Defense Ministry, the creation of a war room, the mobilization of our best minds and talents - all these are being put forward in the hope that they will provide the magic formula for solving our national problems in the wake of the recent war. Furthermore, hardly anyone is asking whether the recent conflict should have been launched at all. Everyone wants to investigate how it was conducted, to zero in on the lack of food, water and other equipment to focus on the last two days, to concentrate on the lack of preparedness, to apportion blame or at least assign responsibility. Above all, we must prepare for the "next round." And now, from the so-called "left," the latest "hit": Ladies and gentlemen, following its triumphant appearance in southern Lebanon, we have the honor to present the deployment of an International Force in Gaza and the West Bank! Let the soldiers of France and Italy defend us from terrorist attacks; let the troops of Turkey and Indonesia govern the Palestinians; let everybody else carry out our tasks. In short, we are prepared to do anything that enables us to avoid dealing with our existential problem. Once again we Israelis are determined to escape from the most important question that faces us: the relationship between Jews and Arabs in the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. The appeal to others to pull our chestnuts out of the fire, the flight from responsibility, the refusal to make decisions is a repudiation of our national self-respect. It is obvious that we ourselves should confront the Palestinians face-to-face and solve the problem - or at least embark on a long-term process toward a solution. Unfortunately, however, we are determined to go on evading the issue. We never miss an opportunity to trumpet our view that there are no grounds for negotiations with the Palestinians. We are prepared to consider anything that will save us from direct contact with them. A wall or an international force can do the job - or better still - a wall and an international force. As regards our own Palestinians, the Arab citizens of Israel, we Jews can simply ignore their existence. If we shut our eyes, maybe they will disappear. That is the meaning of the continuing refusal to implement the recommendations of the Or Commission. It is tedious to restate this time after time, but sadly it has to be pointed out yet again: Two peoples inhabit this land, we have lived here in the past, and we will continue to live here in the future. We have to work out some way of living together. We have to work out a formula for sharing our territory. We have to establish a means of cooperating to preserve our environment. We have to find a way to govern our population. We all know that basically there are three possible solutions to the problem. I am on record as proposing the creation of a single, democratic, multicultural state for Jews, Arabs and others, but I am keenly aware that only a tiny minority supports this aspiration. I think it will eventually happen, but I realize it may take a few more generations. I am utterly opposed to the opposite proposal, which we may call "the Land of Israel Solution." The establishment of a Jewish state in Israel and the territories, while leaving a large proportion of the population effectively disenfranchised, seems to be immoral and difficult to implement, although even that would be an attempt to settle the problem. Meanwhile, I have no objection to the two-state solution, but even that will not implement itself. It has to be negotiated with the other side. There is no way of evading this issue. There is simply no alternative. Nobody is going to do it for us. We have to take our fate into our own hands. That is the consequence of self-determination. That is the significance of national sovereignty. That is the meaning of Zionism. Daniel Gavron is writing a book on Jewish-Arab cooperation and coexistence projects.
[JPN Commentary: The love affair between Christian Zionism and right wing Jewish Zionists is truly a strange thing. Max Blumenthal provides us with some of the gory details...Two people's roles are highlighted in the article: One is John Haggee, founder of "Christians United for Israel" (CUFI), and the other is David Brog, a Jewish man who works as a lobbyist for CUFI:"Thanks to Brog's parrying of Jewish criticism and securing the cooperation of major Jewish organizations, his "brother" Hagee faces few repercussions as he prays for Armageddon. With local CUFI chapters growing across the country, a "rapid response network" of thousands of pastors developing, and an open door to the White House, Brog and Hagee are planning for the long term. "We want to speak to Washington and encourage support for Israel whatever the conflict may be," Brog said. He paused, adding, "Provided of course that Israel's cause continues to be just." But the renewal of the peace process and rolling back the West Bank settlements would be an unjust cause. For Hagee and for CUFI, all roads lead to a "nuclear showdown: with Iran. Diplomacy would only make God angry. As Hagee warns in Jerusalem Countdown, "Those who follow a policy of opposition to God's purposes will receive the swift and severe judgment of God without limitation." - RG]
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060814/new_christian_zionism Over the past months, the White House has convened a series of off-the-record meetings about its policies in the Middle East with leaders of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a newly formed political organization that tells its members that supporting Israel's expansionist policies is "a biblical imperative." CUFI's Washington lobbyist, David Brog, told me that during the meetings, CUFI representatives pressed White House officials to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran, refuse aid to the Palestinians and give Israel a free hand as it ramped up its military conflict with Hezbollah. The White House instructed Brog not to reveal the names of officials he met with, Brog said. CUFI's advice to the Bush Administration reflects the Armageddon-based foreign-policy views of its founder, John Hagee. Hagee is a fire-and-brimstone preacher from San Antonio who commands the nearly 18,000-member Cornerstone Church and hosts a major TV ministry where he explains to millions of viewers how the end times will unfold. He is also the author of numerous best-selling pulp-prophecy books, like his recent Jerusalem Countdown, in which he cites various unnamed Israeli intelligence sources to claim that Iran is producing nuclear "suitcase bombs." The only way to defeat the Iranian evildoers, he says, is a full-scale military assault. "The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty," Hagee wrote this year in the Pentecostal magazine Charisma. "Israel and America must confront Iran's nuclear ability and willingness to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. For Israel to wait is to risk committing national suicide." Despite his penchant for extreme rhetoric, or perhaps because of it, Hagee endeared himself to key members of the Israeli right. With the help of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who once spoke at a massive pro-Israel fundraiser at Cornerstone Church, Hagee has raised at least $8.5 million for Israeli social work projects. And as a result of Hagee's influence in the Lone Star State, reflected by his enormous wealth--he reportedly rakes in more than $1 million a year from his television ministry--and his close relationship with the previously omnipotent and now disgraced former House majority leader Tom DeLay, Washington's Republican leadership is just a phone call away. Hagee recently united America's largest Christian Zionist congregations and some of the movement's most prominent figures--including the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Gary Bauer and Rod Parsley, an Ohio preacher instrumental in launching Republican Ken Blackwell's gubernatorial campaign--under the banner of CUFI, creating the first and only nationwide evangelical political organization dedicated to supporting Israel. Hagee says he would like to see CUFI become "the Christian version of AIPAC," referring to the vaunted pro-Israel group rated second only to the National Rifle Association as the most effective lobby in Washington. But while Hagee is the public face of CUFI, he remains tethered to his ministry in the Texas plains, far from the wheeling and dealing of inside-the-Beltway culture. To advance his agenda on the Hill, Hagee has tapped David Brog, a seasoned and articulate lawyer who has been Republican Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter's chief of staff, and who boasts myriad connections in Republican Washington. Besides Brog's political acumen, there was another characteristic Hagee found appealing: He is Jewish. "I think while there are some differences between us as far as our religious views," Brog told me about Hagee, "what matters more, and what is of much deeper significance, is everything that we share. We share a love for Israel and a love for America. And we share an understanding of the war on radical Islamic terror, and that makes us brothers." As Hagee's political point man, Brog has instantly emerged as an important operative on the Christian right and an effective advocate shielding the movement from institutional Jewish criticism whenever an evangelical leader makes a gaffe. After a series of wildly impolitic remarks by Pat Robertson, including the suggestion that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's descent into a comatose state was God's punishment for the Gaza withdrawal, Brog used an interview with the conservative National Review to defend Robertson as "a good man." When Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman lambasted the Christian right as a dire threat to America's Jewish community, Brog scolded Foxman in a lengthy Wall Street Journal op-ed. "There are very serious threats facing American Jews today, and they have nothing to do with social conservatives," he wrote. Brog says he is more comfortable among evangelicals than most Jews, in large part because he shares their viewpoint on social issues like abortion and homosexuality. "I experienced an evolution in my views," Brog explained. "I was a Democrat as late as law school, and when I started off in the political world I was an Arlen Specter Republican. But over the years I've really continued to become more conservative. I don't think my views on social issues line up with those in the Jewish community anymore." Brog's first major order of business as CUFI's executive director was to preside over its kick-off banquet on July 18, an unqualified success, with more than 3,000 evangelicals packing the Washington Hilton's main ballroom to hear speeches by speakers ranging from Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon to Republican Senators Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback, to Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman who has vowed to peel off Jewish voters from the Democratic Party by highlighting the GOP's unwavering support of Israel. Though CUFI's banquet was planned months in advance, its timing could not have been more opportune, staged as Israel and Hezbollah exchanged their first salvos over Lebanon's southern border. While international diplomats were ratcheting up pressure on the United States to administer a cease-fire, Falwell used his speech at the banquet to issue a stern warning to the White House. "I will rebuke the State Department for any and every time it told Israel to stand down and show restraint," he boomed, sending gales of applause rippling through the packed crowd. The next day, thousands of attendees of CUFI's banquet fanned out to Congressional offices to lobby lawmakers in support of Israel's military campaign in Lebanon. CUFI's lobbying push coincided with the nearly unanimous passage of an AIPAC-authored House resolution declaring support for Israel. Though CUFI's efforts on the Hill certainly did not hinder support for the resolution, according to Brog, CUFI's impact has been felt "on a more subtle level." Brog underscored how the latest Middle East crisis has provided a platform for Christian Zionists to exercise their newfound influence: "There is an ongoing debate in Washington over how long to let Israel continue the campaign against Hezbollah--how long will we let Israel fight its war on terror as we fight our own war on terror? And I think the arrival in Washington at that juncture of thousands of Christians who came for one issue and one issue only, to support Israel, sent a very important message to the Administration and the Congress, and I think helped persuade people that they should allow Israel some more time." M.J. Rosenberg, director of policy analysis for the Israel Policy Forum, a Washington-based group working to restore US support for an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, dismisses the Christian Zionist lobby as a pilot fish alongside the great white shark of AIPAC. "I think that the only effective pro-Israel lobby is the Jewish pro-Israel lobby," Rosenberg told me. "And that's because the right-wing Christians are Republicans. Israel tends to not even be their main issue; they have abortion and gay marriage higher on their radar. What makes the Jewish pro-Israel lobby more influential is that their people give their donations to anyone who is effective on the issue, Democrat or Republican. These people [Christian Zionists] are locked into Republicans." But Brog maintains that CUFI represents a novel phenomenon in evangelical politicking. Though CUFI's constituency is almost entirely Republican, Brog says the success of its banquet reflects the increasing importance of Israel to evangelical voters. "It took AIPAC over fifteen years to get over 2,000 people to their annual policy conference. The fact that in five months that we got over 3,000 people to our conference and were turning people away--it sent a message. It's one thing to say, 'Hey, I support Israel among the other issues I support.' It's another to cancel your vacation and fly to Washington and say, 'I'm here, I'm a Christian activist and Israel's more important to me than any other issue.' " Brog has revealed several "meet and greet" sessions between CUFI and the Bush Administration that highlight the elevated importance of Christian Zionism in GOP-dominated Washington. At the White House, Brog and CUFI's representatives have professed their support for Israel's military campaign in Lebanon and, in Brog's words, "spoke to the Administration about Iran and the need to prevent arms from going to Iran and Hamas, and the need not to let any US aid go to Hamas." Brog explains that CUFI has become a valuable ally of AIPAC, which helps them coordinate lobbying efforts. "They have a great research staff," he said. Brog has also earned the confidence of the Jewish Federation by making sure to elicit the cooperation of its local chapters before initiating a recruitment drive in the federation's area. "I have absolutely no reservation about working with John Hagee," Houston-area Jewish Federation CEO Lee Wunsch told the Jerusalem Post. AIPAC spokesman Josh Block declined to answer questions about the extent of CUFI's influence. But he offered a positive, if somewhat canned assessment of their lobbying efforts. "That organization is evidence of the broad American support for the US-Israel relationship that exists in every segment of American society," Block told me. "AIPAC welcomes all organizations working to strengthen the bond between the United States and Israel." But CUFI is not just any pro-Israel organization. Brog first encountered Hagee in 2005, shortly after Brog left his job as Senator Specter's chief of staff. Both Brog and Hagee happened to be invited by evangelical publishing magnate Steven Strang to speak at an evangelical mega-church's "Night to Honor Israel" in Orlando, Florida. At the time, Brog was "researching" a book he planned to write on evangelical-Jewish relations. "I was just curious," he said, "are these guys really some evil people working for Armageddon as the media portrays them?" Any concern in Brog's mind that evangelicals harbored nihilistic motives for supporting Israel was dispelled, he says, once he and Hagee sat down and chatted. It was then that Hagee revealed his vision of a massive new Christian Zionist lobbying organization. Brog expressed enthusiasm for Hagee's idea and touted his political experience. Hagee was sold. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. "I thought it was the most important thing I could do, not only for Israel but for America," Brog said of his decision to work for the preacher. A speech in November 2005 by Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman blasting the Christian right as the "key domestic challenge to the American Jewish community" was the moment for Brog's emergence. During the late 1990s, Foxman had heaped praise on Christian Zionists and paid to reprint a pro-Israel op-ed by Ralph Reed as a prominent ad in the New York Times. Foxman's criticism provoked Brog to step forward in his new identity. In an op-ed article published on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, he wrote: "There is indeed merit to the agenda pursued by Christian conservatives. Evangelical Christians are rock-solid supporters of Israel--a fact that the Jewish community has belatedly begun to acknowledge and appreciate." Brog's rebuke to Foxman was echoed with a chorus of Christian-right outrage, including a blunt threat from Don Wildmon of the American Family Association. "The more [Foxman] says that 'you people are destroying this country,' " Wildmon said during a radio broadcast, "[the more] some people are going to begin to get fed up with this and say, 'Well, all right then. If that's the way you feel, then we just won't support Israel anymore.' " Since the controversy stirred up by his comments, Foxman has muted his criticism of the Christian right. Even more, he has offered his qualified acceptance of CUFI. "On the one hand, we need to welcome him. On the other, we need to be cautious about embracing it," Foxman said last month to the Jerusalem Post about Hagee and his organization. Brog's recently published book, Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State, expands his case for Jewish acceptance of evangelical political goals. Brog told National Review that his book has universal appeal and will help anyone to "better comprehend the birth pangs of what in time will be a very important alliance." The phrase "birth pangs" is clearly understood by evangelicals as a scriptural citation from Matthew 24, which refers to the apocalyptic struggle that will usher in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Yet the thrust of Brog's arguments is targeted toward a Jewish audience suspicious of evangelical motives. Brog's thesis rests on the premise that while Islamic anti-Semitism poses an existential threat to Jews, Christian anti-Semitism is a bygone phenomenon that died the moment the Allies seized Hitler's bunker. To explain the psychology of those Jews who think otherwise, Brog invokes the stereotype of the shtetl Jew. "Many in the American Jewish community are also living in the past, stuck in European ghettos," Brog wrote. "In an alternative reality built on traumatic communal memories, millions of Jews continue to crouch, fingers on their triggers, surrounded by bloodthirsty Christians who view them as a replaced, deicide people. Yet the world has changed dramatically in recent decades, and the enemy they fear has long since become a friend." As proof, Brog cited the outpouring of evangelical support for Israel. Despite his best efforts, Brog remains dogged by questions about evangelical reasons for backing Israel. Hagee has told his supporters that supporting Israel is a "biblical imperative," and proudly pronounces his belief that Israel is the future site of the Rapture. Hagee has even reveled in events that most Israelis would describe as tragic. For instance, in his 1996 book The Beginning of the End, Hagee described the murder of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as fulfillment of prophecy and suggested admiration for Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir. Imagining Amir's mindset as he prepared himself to kill Rabin, Hagee wrote, "Tonight, if God was good, an opportunity would show itself. No longer would Rabin be able to transfer Israeli lands to Palestinians. The damage he'd done in the West Bank and Gaza was enough. Israel had a divine right to the land, and to give it away was an act of treason against Israel and an abomination against God." More recently, some of Hagee's allies, such as nationally syndicated evangelical radio host Janet Parshall, became ecstatic when Israel and Hezbollah commenced hostilities last month. "These are the times we've been waiting for," Parshall told her listeners in a voice brimming with joy on July 21. "This is straight out of a Sunday school lesson." Brog dismisses concerns about the Christian Zionists' fixation on end times as a "misreading of Christian theology. "One sign of the Second Coming is that there will be widespread moral decay in society," Brog told me. "If Christians really thought they could speed the Second Coming, then why aren't Christians out there opening brothels and selling drugs? Quite to the contrary and quite to the chagrin of many liberals, they are doing the opposite." Thanks to Brog's parrying of Jewish criticism and securing the cooperation of major Jewish organizations, his "brother" Hagee faces few repercussions as he prays for Armageddon. With local CUFI chapters growing across the country, a "rapid response network" of thousands of pastors developing, and an open door to the White House, Brog and Hagee are planning for the long term. "We want to speak to Washington and encourage support for Israel whatever the conflict may be," Brog said. He paused, adding, "Provided of course that Israel's cause continues to be just." But the renewal of the peace process and rolling back the West Bank settlements would be an unjust cause. For Hagee and for CUFI, all roads lead to a "nuclear showdown: with Iran. Diplomacy would only make God angry. As Hagee warns in Jerusalem Countdown, "Those who follow a policy of opposition to God's purposes will receive the swift and severe judgment of God without limitation."
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Jewish Peace News Editors: Judith Norman Alistair Welchman Mitchell Plitnick Lincoln Shlensky Rela Mazali Sarah Anne Minkin Joel Beinin Racheli Gai