Israeli Ambassador Rejects American Jews, Embraces Hagee, Christian Zionists

Israeli Ambassador Rejects American Jews, Embraces Hagee, Christian Zionists
 
By Rachel Tabachnick
 Michael Oren, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., is apparently rejecting the invitation by J Street for their upcoming conference.  It should be shocking that the ambassador would reject the invitation to speak to a conference of American Jews coming together in support of Israel, particularly since he was quite willing to speak to John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel this past July, a few months after being named as ambassador.   Oren’s excuse for snubbing J Street is that the organization could "impair Israeli interests."In the strange world of today’s interpretation of pro-Israel politics, those of us who are "liberal Jews" are now considered more of a threat to Israel’s future than the Christian Zionists who have fantasized about the destruction of Judaism for generations.   One can assume that Ambassador Oren does not view Hagee’s CUFI as impairing Israel’s interests.   The tunnel vision and shortsighted preference for the embrace of millennial zealots over the support of those who have a vested interest in preserving the humanity of Jews and the perpetuation of Judaism, is tragic, and not just for Israel. Who is really impairing the interests of Israel?   Last year, on October 26, 2008, Oren spoke at John Hagee’s Cornerstone Church in San Antonio as part of their Feast of Tabernacles celebration, a Christian Zionist adaptation of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.  Feast of Tabernacle celebrants believe the holiday will usher in the utopian Millennium of Jesus Christ.  As Hagee stated in his book Final Dawn Over Jerusalem, "when 6,000 years pass and that Sukkot moment has come, Jesus 1,000 year reign will begin…We’ll trade in the condom culture and politically correct madhouse for paradise.  This AIDS-infected, abortion-loving, pornography-addicted, secular-humanist sewer will disappear as Jesus Christ redeems the entire creation."  The Feast of Tabernacles was popularized in the Latter Rain revival of the 1940s and 1950s and became a centerpiece of the movement as described in George Warnock’s 1951 book "Feast of the Tabernacles."  It is now being celebrated by growing numbers of Christian Zionists in nations all over the world including Africa and Asia and has been hosted by charismatic Christian Zionists in Jerusalem for almost thirty years. Christian Zionists "impair the interests" of Israel in numerous ways.  This is particularly true if one considers the survival of Judaism to be in the best interest of Israel or Jews worldwide.  Unfortunately in the chest thumping contests of "pro-Israel" zealotry, the damage done by Christian Zionists gets little attention.  Behind the protestations of love for Israel, and the adoption of external trappings of Jewish practice, the core of the Christian Zionist agenda is the termination of Judaism as a religion separate from Christianity.  In the thousands of pages of and hundreds of hours of narrative I have watched over the last seven years, the Christian Zionist scripts vary only slightly.  There is currently disagreement about the timing, and where the born again believers will be during the Tribulation, but the ending is always the same – the  "restoration" and "salvation" of Israel is the trigger which brings about the Christian millennial utopia. This is achieved through the termination of Judaism, one way or another.  One way is proselytizing. Israeli and American Jewish communities have been told elaborate explanations by leaders like David Brog, the Jewish director of Hagee’s CUFI, and to a lesser extent, Ambassador Oren, as to why these Christian Zionists no longer proselytize.  These explanations may sound plausible to those not familiar with Christian Zionist organizations, but the myth that these ministries are not involved in proselytizing can easily be dispelled, unless one limits the definition of proselytizing to handing out pamphlets to the Jewish participants they are trying to entice.  This is an outdated stereotype and not how sophisticated modern evangelical proselytizing works.