Netanyahu to Christian Zionists: ‘We must all pray for the peace of Jerusalem’
by Dan Slobodkin
“Nobody can deny the connection of the Jewish people to the Jewish land,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told delegates to the Jerusalem Summit of Christians United for Israel at the Jerusalem Convention Center Monday night.
Noting that “Christian Zionism preceded modern Jewish Zionism,” Netanyahu hailed CUFI founder Pastor John Hagee. The Prime Minister said that when Hagee founded the organization in 2006, the San Antonio-based pastor “began to say to their congregations and to anyone who listened, it’s time to take a stand with Israel. It was time to take a stand with the sole democracy in the Middle East. It was time to take a stand against the lies and the slander and the vilifications. It was time to defend the Jewish state’s right to defend itself.”
Hagee has voiced support for a preemptive strike against Iran, but in 2007 said it would precipitate a regional war that would kill most of Israel’s Jews.
Netanyahu said the prospects of a nuclear Iran or Pakistan was the greatest threat “to our our common future.”
“If Iran develops atomic weapons,” warned Netanyahu, “the world would never be the same. We would witness a cascade of terrorism across the globe as terrorists would operate under an Iranian nuclear umbrella. Look at how much havoc, how much terror they sow now, when there is no such umbrella, and understand what can happen if Iran, their patron, sponsor, supplier and supporter, if that Iran had nuclear weapons. Equally, the region’s vital oil supplies could be severely threatened and efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East would collapse as one regime after another would rush to acquire nuclear weapons of their own. Worst of all, if nuclear weapons would be given to terrorists, or to terrorist states, a 65-year-old era of nuclear peace would be endangered for the first time.”
“Remember that for the tyrants in Tehran, Israel is only the Little Satan,” noted the Prime Minister. “In their eyes, America is the Great Satan. America is their ultimate target.”
He said international sanctions against Iran “must have teeth…that bite deep into Iran’s energy sector. Simply put, they should prevent Iran from importing gasoline and from exporting oil.”
In addition to security threats, Netanyahu said Israel faces “unprecedented challenges to our legitimacy” from the UN as well as attempts “to perpetrate one of the greatest lies of history — to deny the connection between the people of Israel and the land of Israel; to cast the Jewish people as foreigners in the land of our forefathers. Make no mistake about it. The attempt to deny our history in this land is an attempt to deny our future in this land. That is why to defend our past is to defend our future.
“I ask you all to join us in this battle to defend the truth. Remind them of Abraham and Isaac, remind them of Joshua and Samuel, remind them of David and Solomon. Remind the world that the land of the Bible is not in the heavens but right here on earth. And that the people of the Bible, are on the land of the Bible.
“Let me tell you how I remind foreign officials of this connection of the Jewish people to our history and to this land. You see, they visit my office. And I say, Would you come and look at this little signet ring that I was given on loan from the Department of Antiquities? It was found next to the Wall of the Second Temple, but it dates back to the First Temple. It goes back some 2800 years ago, to the period of the Kings. It is a signet seal of a Jewish official, and it has a name written in ancient Hebrew, which I can read. The name is: Netanyahu. Netanyahu Ben-Yoash. I say, that’s my last name. My first name, Benjamin, dates back 1,000 years earlier, to Benjamin the son of Jacob, who also walked these hills. That is our connection. And nobody can deny the connection of the Jewish people to the Jewish land.
“Israel faces great challenges. We must prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. We must repel the assault on our legitimacy. We must find a way to achieve peace with our neighbors. We must all pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”
Listings for hotels in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel. No booking fee.
Robert Stearns, the CUFI director who co-founded the International Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem sang “Hatikvah.” It is all very touching until you understand what is meant by “blessing” Israel through the Day of Prayer.
Stearns and his co-founder Jack Hayford link Christian Zionist and churches to the support system for proselytizing Jews in Israel, Ukraine, Russia, and South America. Hayford heads a seminary which trains Messianics to “best reveal Yeshua to all Israel.” “Blessing” Israel means saving it from Judaism. If you read their own books and media, there is no doubt.
During yesterday’s events Hagee repeated three times, the last with the Christian Zionist audience, “Lord save your people, the remnant of Israel.” If Israelis knew what Hagee writes and preaches about the meaning of the remnant of Israel, they might not be so anxious to partner with him and Christians United for Israel.
I know the common response to this is that Jews have nothing to fear if we don’t believe these end times events will take place. That misses the point. Hagee and CUFI are working now to fulfill the prophetic prerequisites that they believe will bring about the Christian Millennium.
One of those is the belief that they must be “fishers” who will bring Jews to Israel and they will be followed by “hunters” who will force Jews to Israel in a worldwide wave of violent anti-Semitism. This “fishers and hunters” motif was the meaning of Hagee’s 2005 sermon, which my colleague brought to the attention of the press in 2008 and resulted in the rejection of Hagee’s endorsement by U.S. presidential candidate John McCain.
Rachel Tabachnick is a recognized writer specializing in Christian Zionism.