Israelis less than enraptured with Hagee

Is Pastor Hagee Good for the Jews? writes David Van Biema in Time Magazine. The fire and brimstone preacher directs plenty of American dollars and prayers to Israel with his faith-fuelled boosterism, and cynical Israelis certainly do not indulge in "Hagee-ography". Instead, they welcome him with open arms, and ignore offensive parts of his message.

Cutting ties with John Hagee has proved to be a lot easier for Senator John McCain than it has been for some of the very Jewish groups most offended by the conservative Evangelical pastor's statements about God and the Holocaust. McCain moved to dissociate himself from Hagee after a 1999 sermon was publicized in which Hagee claimed that God intended the Holocaust, and had prophesied it in the Book of Jeremiah. "And that will be offensive to some people," Hagee boomed. "Well, dear heart, be offended. I didn't write it. Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said, 'My top priority to the Jewish people is to get them back to Israel.'

But where McCain cut ties with the Evangelical mega-pastor who had endorsed his candidacy, Abe Foxman, head of the anti-Semitism watchdog organization the Anti-defamation League, appeared more willing to forgive. The reason for Foxman's reluctance to abandon Hagee may have been summed up in a letter from the pastor carried on the ADL's website, in which Hagee points out, "I have devoted much of my adult life to combating anti-Semitism and supporting the state of Israel."
Hagee's support for the Jewish State — he also heads up the influential organization Christians United for Israel, and was a key speaker at last year's conference of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) — has brought Israel millions, if not billions of dollars from Evangelical tourism, and it has delivered political support for a strong pro-Israel policy in Washington. As important as it has been to Israel, such backing has always come with an asterisk: Hagee's affection for Israel derives from a belief that for the Second Coming of Christ to occur, the Jews must return to Israel and rebuild the Temple destroyed by the Romans. The catch in this belief is that once the End Times roll, practicing Jews will be killed off during a period called the Tribulation — only those who convert to Christianity will survive.
Asked about this theology in a 2006 interview with NPR's Terry Gross, Hagee said that Jews would not be "raptured" and would be exposed to the Tribulation, although he said an unspecified number of survivors will accept Jesus as the Messiah and thereby attain eternal life. Many Jewish supporters of Israel tolerated Hagee's disdain for their beliefs, reasoning that his friendship was useful to Israel and that his End-Times scenario was but a harmless fantasy.
But the 1999 sermon jolted many, because of its implication that Hagee could look with equanimity upon the mass extermination of Jews not only at some point in the hypothetical future, but also in the recent past. And, dear heart, they were offended.

After McCain dropped Hagee, the pastor wrote in a letter to Foxman that the Holocaust had been "a tragedy unique in its evil and horror," and that he himself was committed to helping the Jewish community fulfill the words "Never again." However, he admitted, "Central to my faith is a belief in an omnipotent, sovereign God" who presumably could have stopped it. "I grappled with the vexing question of why a loving God would allow the Holocaust to occur."

Hagee is a potent influence in the hyper-fundamentalist wing of the Evangelical movement, and although his beliefs (technically known as pre-millenial dispensationalism) are held formally only by a minority of Evangelical congregations, the Left Behind novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, which render those ideas in fictional form, have been wildly popular. So it is worth noting that Hagee's claim to have been pained and perplexed at how his God could have allowed the Holocaust may represent fuzzy logic. After all, Hagee made clear in 1999 that he thinks he knows exactly why God had allowed the Holocaust — in Hagee's view of the preordained march of history towards Salvation, the Jews are collateral damage.

Most Biblical historians believe that Jeremiah, who indeed spent his career predicting his own people's ruin, lived to see his vision fulfilled when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem in 587 BC. It's difficult to find a serious academic who believes Jeremiah was looking 2,600-odd years into the future, although it may be a snug fit with the narrative of pre-millenialism. Unlike most of his predecessors, Hagee knows and likes Jews — rather like a Maoist who has personally befriended some members of the bourgeoisie, and finds himself torn between his affinity for them as individuals and what he knows to be their fate as a class in history's inevitable march toward a greater good.

For McCain, Hagee's theology may make him a liability, but for Foxman, the need for the Evangelical powerhouse's support for Israel trumps any annoyance at his view that the purpose of the Jewish State is to create conditions for an apocalypse that will see most Jews destroyed. Without commenting directly on Hagee, the ADL chief told TIME that in general "My condition for [evangelical] friendship is that your love is not conditioned on my accepting your theology." Hagee apparently passes muster, since Foxman, replying to his letter, stated that he looked forward to working with the pastor against anti-Semitism. "We value your acknowledgement that the Holocaust was a tragedy unique in its evil and horror" and "the limits of our understanding in seeking to comprehend the mind of God," Foxman wrote. He added avuncularly, "We mortals sometimes get into trouble fathoming God's ways." Some of us more predictably than most.

Two further memorable quotes from Hagee, the millionaire televangelist. Makes one wonder whether it's hyperbole from the pulpit or scary bombast:

“God caused Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because it had a gay pride the week before and was filled with sexual sin.”

“All Muslims are programmed to kill and we can never negotiate with any of them. …those who live by the Koran have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews.”

Christian students in Bethlehem hard-pressed to 'Love the Neighbor' in Holy Land

It should take Amal Abed Rabbo, 16, one hour to reach the Lutheran Dar al-Kalima School in Bethlehem from her Jericho home. With Israeli travel restrictions, it takes three hours each way. Instead, she stays with her uncle's family in Bethlehem during the week.

But the Roman Catholic 11th-grader doesn't harbor any hatred. "The situation is not good for us, but I don't have hatred against Israel," she said. "I have hope and faith that the situation will one day end and we will have peace."

Students at the four schools run by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land must strive daily to practice Jesus' edict to "love thy neighbor."

Each day they face political hardships with the Israeli government and within their society, reports Judith Sudilovsky. in a guest post. Charlie Haddad, educational director for the schools, sees helping students come to terms with their reality as a main task, in addition to striving for academic excellence.

"If they start hating, it will never end," he said. "It is the biggest challenge to convince the young people not to feel [hate]. Of course they struggle with it. They see the news, hear their parents and feel the economic hardship. It is very difficult to convince them that it is a government doing that and not to stereotype a whole nation."

But Haddad doesn't necessarily want the children to get used to the situation either.

Before the outbreak of the second Intifada, Haddad encouraged the schools to meet with Israeli counterparts. The meetings fizzled once the violence began. "Both sides are afraid of the other," he said. "They each know very little about the other."

School administrators and teachers are hesitant to restart dialogue for fear of being seen as traitors/collaborators because Christians and their institutions are associated with unpopular Western and American regional policies, Haddad said.

"A lot of fanaticism was created by the intifada," he said. "Before the intifada there was no Hamas or Islamic jihad. ... Muslims look at us as foreigners now. ... It puts Christians in an awkward situation."

Yet Haddad would like to see programs developed so Israeli and Palestinian students can communicate freely.

After the intifada, only the Arab Education Institute's peace education program—aimed at exposing teachers, administrators and students to the religious traditions of the three monotheistic faiths—continued to function, he said. But the joint workshops with Jews, Christians and Muslims are intermittent, partly because of travel restrictions on students like those pictured above.

Talking openly

It's vital not to sweep problems under the carpet, Haddad said. Many times the morning devotion at the Dar al-Kalima School is dedicated to discussing current events, allowing students to express their fears and concerns.

"If you ... suppress things, you allow anger to grow," said Munib Younan, bishop of the Lutheran denomination. "We need to teach toleration and love, [to] not succumb to hatred but instead find a solution. Teaching violence is the tool of incompetence."

Younan sees "toleration" as acceptance of diversity and living together in peace, whereas, he said, the word "tolerance," which he dislikes, means something you must accept.

Abed Rabbo said students at her school can discuss problematic issues without letting it affect their relationships with each other. "We don't take it personally," she said. "The problems are outside, they are not between us."

Last year, when tempers flared in the Muslim world over Danish cartoons that lampooned the prophet Mohammed, Younan said all teachers at the Lutheran schools were asked to devote classroom time to the topic.

"It is allowed to be angry, but as Jesus taught: Be angry but don't sin," he said. "You are allowed to be angry when someone is killed. I would be lying to you if I said I did not become angry when anybody—Christian, Jewish or Muslim—is killed. But this anger should not trespass a line and it should not only remain in anger but find ... solutions."

At the Lutheran schools—as in all Palestinian schools—Christians and Muslims attend separate religion classes. But in Dar al-Kalima the two classes also meet twice a month to learn about the other religion as well as about Judaism and the Old Testament.

Tony Nassar, Christianity teacher, said the schools can do more to create understanding between Christians and Muslims than with Jews because both are part of Palestinian society.

Nassar teaches the joint lesson with In'am Shaktour, the Islam teacher. "They see Tony and me working together, and they learn from us," Shaktour said.

Both try to help students differentiate between Judaism as a religion and Israel as a political entity, she added.

Haddad said he'd like to see the school's program become more structured. He submitted a proposal to the (Lutheran) Church of Norway for funding that would allow more frequent meetings and special trips to holy sites.

As inheritors of Martin Luther's Reformation, the Palestinian Lutheran schools hope to be part of the reformation of Palestinian society through formal and informal educational programs. It's something Haddad said he'd like to see.

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Judith Sudilovsky's article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Christians Bring Iranian Jews to Israel

Evangelical Christians in the U.S. have helped convince dozens of Iranian Jews to move to Israel in recent months, offering cash incentives and claiming that Iran's tiny Jewish community is in grave danger, the Associated Press reports. It's the latest wrinkle in the demographic tug of war for numerical dominance between Jewish immigrants and Israeli Arabs.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a charity that funnels millions of dollars in evangelical donations to Israel every year, is promising $10,000 to every Iranian Jew who comes to Israel, said the group's director, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein.

The project is another example of the alliance between the Jewish state and evangelical American Christians, many of whom see the existence of Israel and the return of Jews to the Holy Land as a realization of biblical prophesy that will culminate with Christ's Second Coming.

But an Iran expert said the money would not be enough to draw Iranian Jews, who generally do not perceive themselves to be in great danger in the Islamic republic.

About 25,000 Jews are left in Iran—an overwhelmingly Muslim nation of 65 million—the remnants of a community with origins dating to biblical times. Most Iranian Jews left for Israel or the U.S. over the last 50 years.

Still, Iran's Jewish community is the largest in the Middle East outside Israel, and Iranian Jews have some legal protections. But Israel and Iran are staunch enemies and do not have diplomatic relations. Eckstein argued that calls by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel's elimination, coupled with Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, represent danger.

"Is this not similar to the situation in Nazi Germany in the late '30s, where they (Jews) also felt they could weather the storm?" he asked. Instead, 6 million were killed in the Holocaust, which Ahmadinejad has called a "myth."

Eckstein said his group has helped bring 82 Jews to Israel from Iran since the project began this year, and hopes to bring 60 more by year's end.

The charity, based in Jerusalem and Chicago, has raised $1.4 million for the project, Eckstein said. The IFCJ initially offered $5,000 per immigrant, but doubled the amount when response was lower than expected, he said. Immigrants also receive government aid upon arriving in Israel.

One of the recent arrivals, a 31-year-old widow with three children, said she was not in danger in Iran but was concerned for her children's future.

"At the end of the day, this is the place for the Jewish people," she said, referring to Israel. She is living in the southern port city of Ashdod. Though she claimed to have felt safe in her hometown of Isfahan, she asked that her name be withheld to protect family remaining in Iran.

The grant from the IFCJ was what enabled her to come to Israel, she said. Most Jews in Iran have heard about the grant through word-of- mouth and Israel Radio's broadcasts in Farsi, she said.

Iranian government officials would not comment on the new project.

Iran's Jewish community is technically protected by the Islamic Republic's constitution, and has one representative in a 290-seat parliament.

In a speech at Columbia University in New York last month, the Iranian president insisted that Iranians "are friends of the Jewish people. There are many Jews in Iran living peacefully with security."

Nonetheless, the Jewish community has led an uneasy existence under Iran's Islamic government.

In 2000, Iranian authorities arrested 10 Jews, convicted them of spying for Israel and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from four to 13 years. An appeals court later reduced their sentences under international pressure and eventually freed them.

"Generally, Jews are free to practice Judaism inside Iran," said Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli analyst whose family emigrated from Iran in the Iranian Jews, however, are increasingly concerned about the intensity of attacks on Israel by the Iranian press, which they view as bordering on anti-Semitism, he said.

Such attacks have not led to a mass exodus from Iran, because the majority of Iranians are hospitable to the Jews and most Jews in Iran are economically comfortable, Javedanfar said. However, he noted, "the level of concern has increased" because of Ahmadinejad's statements.

This is not the first time evangelical Christians have taken part in bringing people to Israel. Eckstein's charity also played a role in funding the immigration to Israel of 7,000 members of the Bnei Menashe, a group in India claiming descent from one of the Biblical "lost tribes" of the Jews.

The charity's evangelical donors, who tend to have hardline political views, see encouraging Jewish immigration as a way of strengthening the country in the face of Arab threats.

The IFCJ is one of the most prominent examples of Israel's alliance with evangelical Christians, who have become among the country's most generous donors and most enthusiastic political supporters.

The ties have been welcomed by many Israelis but criticized by others.

Some Israelis believe the country should not align itself with a group seen as an extreme element of American society, while others have charged that the evangelicals' goal is ultimately to convert Jews to Christianity, a charge the evangelicals deny.

Stirring September sunsets are a blast

In the old city of Jerusalem there are a tangle of historic tales, waiting to be respun. My droll buddy James Hider, intrigued by the blast that marks the evening meal during the holy month of Ramadan, sought out the Sandouka family that has summoned fasters to dinner for the past century or so with a cannonball. His report appeared in the London Times, and it makes an intriguing read. Uri Lupolianski, the orthodox Mayor of Jerusalem, has no problem with the Arab family that shoots shells at sundown outside the venerable gates. The mayor sided with the traditionalists and derided new rules that would force Sandouka, who has been shooting the signal blast for two decades, to pass a $2000 certification course before handling explosives.

The shots used to be fired from a cannon donated by the Ottoman Empire, at the Old City’s Flowers gate. Twenty years ago, that artillery piece was replaced by a gun donated by Jordan. Now, Mr Sandouka fires a large percussion grenade – a sort of glorified firework that makes a loud boom – from a pipe set up at the gate.
Israeli security forces have insisted that the percussion grenade for Iftar– which does contain explosives – must be delivered every day by an armed Israeli military explosives expert, to make sure that it does not fall into the hands of terrorists.

Despite the security crackdown, festivity reigns. Churchbells clang, shofars sound their single insistent tone, and muezzins sing forth from minarets as the High Holydays and Ramadan converge this year. Nearly all my neighbours are putting up their sukka huts and issuing invitations to dine outside with them in a "Feast of the Tabernacles." And Christian Zionists are arriving for the good times in full force: 7000 evangelical Christians from dozens of countries plan to march through the city to show their support for Israel. The evenings are getting chilly and the bazaars are hawking heaps of ceremonial plants. Pedestrians tote lulav (palm frond), hadass (myrtle), aravah (willow branch) and etrog (knobbly citron) for the holiday, which celebrates harvest and sacrifices that date from before the sacking of the Second Temple. Iftar parties, replete with twinkling lights and honeyed sweets, enliven every twilight. Faith and family seem to bind Jerusalem at this time of year and life seems sweet.
Except perhaps for the Prime Minister, who is now under investigation for a shady property deal that discounted a pricey garden flat for his family. But Ehud Olmert has managed to wriggle free of all corruption allegations in the past.
Having friends on high must help. There's no sign yet that the sun is setting on his premiership. But after the holidays, things may get heavier for him.

Sudanese Migrants' Exodus to Israel

Hundreds of Sudanese migrants who have crossed the southern desert on foot into Israel now are imprisoned in the so-called Promised Land. And, despite Israel’s pledge to evaluate each case individually, 48 new arrivals were summarily expelled this month immediately after they were caught. The trickle of mostly Muslim asylum-seekers from Africa has become a flood and created a crisis of conscience inside Israel, where security concerns routinely override compassion. Al-Qaeda is active in the Sudan, and this raises alarms.

Some Israelis argue that,after the horrors of the Nazi genocide in Europe, it is morally reprehensible for Israel’s Jews to turn away people fleeing from persecution. Memories of relatives who were refused asylum in the 1930s and sent back to be part of the Final Solution are still excruciating. Around 70 desperate Africans sneak across Israel's barren southern border every night to seek refuge among sympathetic Jews.

But pragmatic politicians warn that Israel, with its population of 7 million, could soon be engulfed by up to 3 million Sudanese. The majority fled from the brutal savagery of civil war and drought-ravaged lands years ago and now seek a softer life in Israel; they want to escape racist abuse and maltreatment in Egypt.

“Israel puts these people at grave risk by expelling them with no proper procedure and no indication of Egypt’s willingness to accept them,” warned Bill Frelick, the refugee policy director for Human Rights Watch. Many have escaped from war-blighted Darfur, travelled north through Chad or Egypt, and had hoped to remain temporarily in Israel until resettled in a third-country.

Sending an illegal migrant back to Sudan after he has visited Israel, an enemy nation, is tantamount to a death sentence.

Last month, the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised asylum to 500 refugees who escaped the horrors of Darfur, but the burgeoning numbers have numbed public sympathy. Government spokesman David Baker clarified that “The policy of returning back anyone who enters illegally will pertain to everyone, including those from Darfur.” Olmert insists that President Hosni Mubarak personally assured him Egypt will safeguard Sudanese who are sent back; but concerns heightened after a tv interview with an Israeli soldier who witnessed Egyptian troops beating and shooting dead four Sudanese refugees trying to slip across the border on August 1st.

Mustafa, a laborer who fled Darfur six years ago and was unhappy living in Cairo, has been under ‘house arrest’ on an Israeli kibbutz for the past year, earning a wage to send home to his relatives in Sudan while his case is reviewed. Other African ‘prisoners’ are assigned jobs at beach resorts in Eilat. Workers are needed to replace the Palestinians now prevented from reaching their jobs by checkpoints and the security wall. Though prohibited from leaving the workplace, Sudanese refugees manage to earn reasonable salaries inside Israel. Word has spread, not by bush telegraph but by cell phone. In 2004 the the United Nations registered just five Sudanese here; Until 2006, with the intifada at full tilt, few asylum seekers would consider Israel. Now, sixty or seventy refugees cross into Israel each night; activists estimate that at least 3000 are inside the country.

Mustafa , age 31, dreads the day he gets deported. He still has nightmares after Egyptian immigration police locked him up for ten days in a cramped jail because he had no documents. “That place is unimaginable,” he recalled recently. “Fifty of us were curled up, very hot, like cooking meat, and everybody was smoking, shouting....It ‘s difficult for a human being to endure vermin crawling over you while you are still alive.”

At great risk, Mustafa took a hand-drawn map of Sinai and set out alone for Israel, which he considers the first outpost of the West.
Bedouin smugglers are willing to spirit refugees across the 132 mile-long frontier, along with prostitutes and drugs, but they can charge able-bodied men $1000 a head. Women pay $600.

Mustafa trekked alone all night through dunes and scrub, but he neglected to bring any drinking water. By journey’s end, his thirst drove him to turn himself in at an Israeli checkpoint. “When I thought of the water, I forgot everything,” he admitted, Israeli soldiers are under orders to arrest stray illegals they encounter in the desert. Security forces and police must make sure illegal aliens get a medical check-up for dehydration before rounding them up and locking them away in Khetziot Prison, a remote desert jail close to the Egyptian border. Men are kept apart from their families here.

Few of the Sudanese women prisoners planned on a permanent move to Israel, observed Anat Hoffman, director of the Israel Religious Action Center,a Reform organization which has launched an outreach program to African refugee families. “They’ve heard so much about Israel in the news, they imagine it’s a huge place, maybe not quite so big as Europe, but just as important," she said. "No one wants our free Hebrew-Arabic dictionaries; they prefer to learn English and eventually to end up in America. They think of the US as the magic place where people of color have a chance. Condi Rice seems like some powerful black queen to them.“

"No one can expect that Israel alone can be the solution for all the Darfur refugees, and we urge the international community to act decisively. Israel is willing to play her part in the framework of international efforts," a Foreign Ministry statement spelled out. A single Messianic Jew in the Negev has erected shelter for 50 Sudanese refugees, according to the Economist.
In contrast to the government's dithering, many private Israelis have been generous. A Jerusalem-based religious group seeks to help the small minority of non-Muslim refugees who, if deported to an Arab country, would come under intense pressure to convert. Christian Sudanese refugees are at particular risk. Egyptian interrogators acting under Sudanese security service supervision routinely torture them to extract intelligence about who else might be reverting to Christianity.

Charmaine Hedding, a spokeswoman for the Christian Embassy, a pro-Zionist Evangelical group, suggested that a number of churches in America would welcome Sudanese Christians sent on from Israel. "Let us relocate these people; 1,000 people is manageable," she said.

Meanwhile, while volunteers try to firm up the arrangements, another seventy desperate Sudanese will evade Egyptians and slip through the desert border into Israel every night.

NOTE: UNRWA officials asked that names be disguised to protect the refugees while their status is determined. Guest post, copyright Jan McGirk, 08/21/2007
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Rapture, Bibles and Blasphemous Balls - - occupational hazards & crusade aids

With so many absurd blunders marring America's outreach to Arab hearts and minds, the
Knesset ought to be wary of its alliance with Christian Zionists and the Evangelical right. Hostilities are bound to ramp up even further.
Take 'Operation Blasphemous Balls', for instance. Not its actual name, of course, but this seemingly innocuous toys for tots scheme backfired because the free footballs dropped en masse over the Afghan countryside from American helicopters enraged Muslims in Khost province. The problem? The Saudi flag, inscribed with the name of Allah, was printed right where it would be kicked. A chagrined American armed forces spokeswoman admitted that at first no one understood why this was offensive. And that's part of the problem. The understanding gap. (Earlier, 13-year-old Matthew Wolfen, from Los Angeles, donated all his birthday and Bar Mitzvah money to Major Daniel Clayton, a pilot who has been handing out air pumps and balls --no, not pigskin-- to underprivileged Afghan children. This went without a hitch.)

Further afield, inside Iraq, Evangelical-inspired soldier morale tactics have gone awry, according to this LA Times piece. Rapture is not a constitutional exit-strategy. (Keep the faith, generals, but spread it gently and not with US tax dollars...)

Maybe what the war in Iraq needs is not more troops but more religion. At least that's the message the Department of Defense seems to be sending.

Last week, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering "freedom packages" to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended.

What were the packages to contain? Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which "soldiers for Christ" hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers.

The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry called Operation Straight Up, or OSU. Headed by former kickboxer Jonathan Spinks, OSU is an official member of the Defense Department's "America Supports You" program. The group has staged a number of Christian-themed shows at military bases, featuring athletes, strongmen and actor-turned-evangelist Stephen Baldwin. But thanks in part to the support of the Pentagon, Operation Straight Up has now begun focusing on Iraq, where, according to its website (on pages taken down last week), it planned an entertainment tour called the "Military Crusade."

Apparently the wonks at the Pentagon forgot that Muslims tend to bristle at the word "crusade" and thought that what the Iraq war lacked was a dose of end-times theology.

In the end, the Defense Department realized the folly of participating in any Operation Straight Up crusade. But the episode is just another example of increasingly disturbing, and indeed unconstitutional, relationships being forged between the U.S. military and private evangelical groups.

Take, for instance, the recent scandal involving Christian Embassy, a group whose expressed purpose is to proselytize to military personnel, diplomats, Capitol Hill staffers and political appointees. In a shocking breach of security, Defense Department officials allowed a Christian Embassy film crew to roam the corridors of the Pentagon unescorted while making a promotional video featuring high-ranking officers and political appointees. (Christian Embassy, which holds prayer meetings weekly at the Pentagon, is so entrenched that Air Force Maj. Gen. John J. Catton Jr. said he'd assumed the organization was a "quasi-federal entity.")

The Pentagon's inspector general recently released a report recommending unspecified "corrective action" for those officers who appeared in the video for violating Defense Department regulations. But, in a telling gesture, the report avoided any discussion of how allowing an evangelical group to function within the Defense Department is an obvious violation of the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment.

The extent to which such relationships have damaged international goodwill toward the U.S. is beyond measure. As the inspector general noted, a leading Turkish newspaper, Sabah, published an article on Air Force Maj. Gen. Peter Sutton, who is the U.S. liaison to the Turkish military - and who appeared in the Christian Embassy video. The article described Christian Embassy as a "radical fundamentalist sect," perhaps irreparably damaging Sutton's primary job objective of building closer ties to the Turkish General Staff, which has expressed alarm at the influence of fundamentalist Christian groups inside the U.S. military.

Our military personnel swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, not the Bible. Yet by turning a blind eye to OSU and Christian Embassy activities, the Pentagon is, in essence, endorsing their proselytizing. And sometimes it's more explicit than that.

That certainly was the case with Army Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence. The Pentagon put him in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in 2003. The same year, Boykin was found to be touring American churches, where he gave speeches - in uniform - casting the Iraq war in end-times terms. "We're in is a spiritual battle," he told one congregation in Oregon. "Satan wants to destroy this nation . . . and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army." The story wound up in newspapers, magazines and on "60 Minutes." And, of course, it was reported all over the Muslim world. The Pentagon reacted with a collective shrug.

American military and political officials must, at the very least, have the foresight not to promote crusade rhetoric in the midst of an already religion-tinged war. Many of our enemies in the Mideast already believe that the world is locked in a contest between Christianity and Islam. Why are our military officials validating this ludicrous claim with their own fiery religious rhetoric?

It's time to actively strip the so-called war on terror of its religious connotations, not add to them. Because religious wars are not just ugly, they are unwinnable. And despite what Operation Straight Up and its supporters in the Pentagon may think is taking place in Iraq, the Rapture is not a viable exit strategy.

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Michael L. Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, wrote "With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military." Reza Aslan, author of "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam," is on the MRFF advisory board.

O Hanukkah Bush

Back in the 1960s, reform Jewish friends from Beverly Hills or the San Fernando Valley used to joke about their “Hanukkah Bushes”.

The kids would insist that their parents buy a ceiling-scraping tree, heap it with baubles, and place it next to the front window, just like all the neighbors. Towering fir trees were flocked and decorated in blue and silver balls, or topped with a star of David rather than an angel. Some families added a special ornament for each night of Chanukah. This fad was seen as a kitschy SoCal hybrid of “Happy Cholidays” with Christmas commerce.

Devout Christian evangelicals reviled pagan trees and stockings left out for Santa Claus and restricted themselves to an elaborate nativity scene. They said anything else was putting the X into Christmas. But people of all religions were drawn to the community Xmas tree bonfires in mid-January. (photo above is courtesy of daodesigns.com). There must be a pyromaniac urge that unites us all. Burn baby burn!

This childhood memory fest was revived when the Jewish National Fund, the Zionists who now own 14 per cent of Israeli land, invited foreign journalists and “assorted Christian friends” to come claim a spruce or fir tree “thinned from its forests.” The largest trees are a staggering 6 metres tall! Leftist friends implied that these gift trees were tainted by a century of pro-settlement sentiment, and that we ought to try and support the Palestinian economy by ferreting out some Christian Xmas tree lots in the West Bank. Easier said than done, considering the obstacles of xrays and turnstills. I did manage to buy a couple of poinsettia plants in East Jerusalem and some overpriced ornaments in Bethlehem. But I hankered for a proper tree, and it seems counterproductive to spurn the JNF’s holiday gift if we expect to interview their members and report their perspective on occupation.

Yet some colleagues consider this notion politically incorrect and suggest that we risk selling out objectivity in exchange for a Hanukkah Bush. (The latter has nothing to do with Dubya Shrubya.) Well, bah humbug. I do wonder whether the JNF gives away trees to any Palestinian Christians. None were in evidence yesterday when Ozzy Bee and I went to pick up our arboreal presents from the JNF, but the giveaway goes on for another week.

We wound our way on the pine-scented Burma Road to Givat-Eshayahu nursery, where a taciturn muscleman took a buzz saw to the beautiful trees of our choice. When we loaded up the car, a nostalgic evergreen aroma of Christmas wafted all around us. We had to take our sylvan load past a couple of checkpoints. Soldiers wished us “Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas”, and cautioned us that the branches poking out the window posed a road hazard. One tiny adolescent soldier with a broad grin could almost have passed as an elf in her green fatigues, if only her rifle had been a toy.

Star-Crossed "Jesuzah"

Check out this odd Judeo-Christian "Jesuzah", a real star-crossed cross.
It takes pride of place beside the door of Earl and Shari Kessler's adobe house in Santa Fe, New Mexico. These globe-trotting folk art collectors purchased this synchronistic curio from a half-Jewish artisan at a local mercado. His forebears took refuge in Mexico, then border-hopped into the American Southwest, and came under the influence of Christian Evangelicals. The young craftsman was inspired to combine powerful symbols from both cultures. This was the result.

Adding a crescent moon in the mix wouldn't be exactly kosher, but the final product might be a fitting insignia for Jerusalem, bringing together signs of all three monotheistic religions. Actually, the official city emblem of Jerusalem recently had to be revamped because it was practically identical to the corporate logo of Peugeot motor cars. City fathers said they would make the rampant lion leaner and meaner to distinguish it from the French car makers' brand, and label it with the city's nametag.

The peculiar "cross of David" pictured above would make quite an apt emblem for the well-heeled Christian Zionists, who are visiting Israel in increasing numbers, funding the return of diaspora Jews and giving unwavering support for Israel's most hardline policies. Some think that the "times of tribulation" already are here and that the End Time is nigh. Click this for an eye-opening online article about the growing onslaught of foreign theo-cons, who upset the delicate religious balance of Jerusalem.