First Report: Hagee’s Christians United for Israel Conference

Looks like in spite of the restrictions this year at the Washington D.C. CUFI Conference, which just ended, the organization Jews on First, managed to somehow gain access to the meetings. Good for them! In a newsletter sent out this evening, also posted at their website, they give us some of the highlights with a promise of more to come as they continue to process the audio:

John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel Conference Mixes End-Times Prophecies With Lobbying

JewsOnFirst.org Reporters Were Inside CUFI’s Washington Conference

Even though televangelist John Hagee barred reporters from the conference of his Christians United for Israel (CUFI), reporters forJewsOnFirst.org covered every session of the conference at the Washington Convention Center, which concluded yesterday.

According to a document distributed at the conference, “CUFI is a national, grassroots organization which unites all pro-Israel Christians in America under one umbrella.”

In an apparent effort to avoid the derisive media coverage of previous CUFI events, the organization’s leaders strove to keep conference attendees focus on their key themes — oppositon to Israeli-Palestinian peace, hostility to Iran, disparaging Islam — political, that is, normal.

However, session audiences repeatedly turned the discussion to the “end times” prophecies that they attach to CUFI’s political issues.

In a sermon opening the conference on Monday, Hagee himself used biblical constructs to express opposition to a land-for-peace settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hagee interpreted Genesis as God giving a “blood covenant” to the land of Israel to Abraham and his descendants — specifically excluding the “Ishmaelites” (understood to be Muslims) from the deed. That land contract, Hagee said, was “based on God’s integrity,” not Abraham’s. Hagee said that “God knew the day would come when there would be a global controversy” over ownership of that land. Please click here for an audio clip.

In the culminating “Night to Honor Israel” banquet on Tuesday night, Hagee expressed political, rather than “prophetic,” opposition to trading land for peace, stating that Israel had not benefited from its withdrawal from the Gaza strip or Lebanon.

In Monday’s sermon, Hagee repeated a major theme he emphasizes in CUFI’s political work: that God will bless those who bless Israel. He called Israel the “gateway of blessings” for individuals, businesses and churches.

Hagee also warned of God’s “judgment” on those who divide Israel’s territory. He has similarly stated that Hurricane Katrina was God’s judgment for a gay parade that New Orleans planned.

Hagee also said that God has chosen Israel as his habitation on earth. “God has married the Land of Israel,” he said, adding “He’s very passionate about it.”

While Hagee stressed the blessings that would come to those who did “practical acts” in support of Israel, he also repeated his teachings on the ultimate disposition of a “united” Jerusalem: It will be ruled forever by Jesus, who, Hagee says, will return “as a Jewish rabbi” with sidecurls — not dressed in a gray flannel suit.

In a call and response, Hagee proclaimed that Jesus will “rule the nations of the world from Zion.” He asked the audience: “Where is the Temple Mount?” And he answered with them: “In Zion.”

Lobby preparations strictly political

In marked contrast, attendees at a briefing by CUFI Executive Director David Brog were instructed to keep their advocacy for Israel strictly political. The briefing was given in advance of visits to congressional offices yesterday. CUFI members were to stress legislation imposing sanctions on Iran and sustaining military aid to Israel.

In the preparatory session, Brog described Iran’s military potential as capable of wreaking a second Holocaust on Israel.

Former Reagan official Frank Gaffney said in the breakout session on Iran that Tehran is developing a missile capable of destroying electrical power grids in the United States. “We have been at war with Iran since 1979,” said Gaffney.

Hagee, in his Monday sermon, said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was planning a nuclear holocaust against Israel. Preached Hagee: “He is not going to stop because it’s a religious belief that he is destined by his God.” At the conference’s closing banquet, Hagee called Ahmadinejad a present-day Hitler.

However, these intense sentiments were absent from CUFI’s lobbying talking points. The printed lobbying guide went only so far as to say: “When Israel fights Hezbollah and Hamas, it’s fighting our enemies.”

Tutorials on the disparagement of Islam

Conference breakout sessions on “Iran: Eye of the Storm” and “Radical Islam: In Their Own Words,” seemed to verge into each other’s subject matter, since speakers at both freely characterized Islam and Muslims as bent on the destruction of the United States and Israel.

In the Iran session, panelist Clifford May compared Shia Islam to the Nazi movement. At one point in the comparison, which moved very fast between Nazis, the Muslim religion as a whole, and militant Islamists, May said that the latter believe that “no acts, no matter how vile and inhuman are forbidden them.”

May, who is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, showed the breakout audience preview clips of a movie in which people with Middle Eastern accents plead with “the West” to wake up to the threat of radical Islam. May said that these clips will be part of a sequel to the controversial film Obsession.

During the panel on Islam, former Sen. Rick Santorum spoke of what he imputed to be the beliefs of Shia Muslims and Iran’s President Ahmadinejad:

Because this an end of times kind of scenairo, these are people who are focused on this Mahdi – that disappeared. This a Mahdi returning at the end of times to lead them in an ultimate victory over the Sunnis and the rest of the world for the sake of the Shia. When you have people who have a very hardened escatalogical view of things — Armegeddon — letting them have nuclear weapons provides a very different point of view than having a bunch of Soviets [have nuclear weapons]. I was never worried about the Soviets doing something really stupid. Because the Soviets were athiests and they knew if they messed up they would be dead and that would be the end of it.

By comparison, Santorum said, Iran’s leaders believe that the best way to be in heaven “with a posse of virgins is to destroy the infidels.” (You can see a video clip of Santorum in the box on the upper right side of this page)

Senator Lieberman’s speech omitted from broadcast

Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, a staunch Hagee ally who ignored a “Don’t go, Joe” petition with over 40,000 signatures to appear as a featured speaker at the closing banquet, was enthusiastically applauded by the CUFI audience, according to press reports. However, Lieberman’s address was not included in a delayed-broadcast on the religious cable channel Daystar. Instead, CUFI Executive Director David Brog hosted several members of Congress in what appeared to be a makeshift studio.

Senator Lieberman’s office was not involved in deciding whether to include his speech in the Daystar broadcast, a spokesman in that office told JewsOnFirst.org.

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When I receive any further updates from Jews on First or from elsewhere, I’ll post them…