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| John Hagee of CUFI demonstrating that Hitler was a hunter of Jews sent by god |
Unlike the EDL/BNP loving Sussex Friends of Israel most Jewish groups in
the United States are wary of the embrace of Christian Evangelist groups. Christian Evangelist groups are
fundamentalist groups which are, at one and the same time, both avidly Zionist and
anti-Semitic. They certainly want Jews to
‘return’ to Palestine
in order that they can then have the battles of Armageddon, Rapture and the
mass genocide of most Jews. Most notable
amongst the Christian fundamentalists is Pastor John Hagee, President of Christians
United for Israel.
Hagee it was who said that Hitler was a ‘hunter’ sent by god in order to
ferret out the Jews from their hiding places and drive them to Palestine.
Not much different from Netanyahu you might think, except that Hitler was
an agent of the Mufti.
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| Hagee and the Rapture |
It was the Christian fundamentalists and Bible belt Christians who,
during the holocaust, were the most vehemently opposed to the immigration of Jewish
refugees just as today they are the most hostile to refugees and migrants as
well as welfare recipients and anyone else down on their luck. It isn’t a Christianity of love your
neighbour so much as beggar your neighbour!
So most Jews in the USA tend to be liberal despite the leadership of the Zionists
being vehement supporters of the neo-Cons and a pro-imperialist foreign
policy. Nowhere was this clearer than on
the agreement with Iran. Whereas most Jews
were in favour of the agreement, by large majorities, the main Zionist lobby
group, AIPAC campaigned fervently to block it in Congress.
This article in Forward, a liberal, previously socialist publication,
gives a flavour of these dilemmas.
Tony Greenstein
Is Evangelical Group a Useful Ally in BDS Fight— or Bigoted Albatross?
Nathan Guttman November 5,
2015
Image: Courtesy of PJTN
Laurie
Cardoza-Moore is responsible for one of the signal achievements in the battle
against attempts to boycott Israel: a bill passed in the Tennessee state
legislature condemning boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel as
anti-Semitic, before any other such measure reached the capitals of other
states.
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| John McCain was forced to disavow Hagee when he ran 4 President because of Hagee's anti-Semitism |
But
search Cardoza-Moore’s name, and one of the first results will take you to a
2010 video clip from the Daily Show in which she claims, citing “the Internet”
as her source, that in America’s Muslim community, “30% are terrorists” and
that they maintain “35 training camps across the United States.”
These
convictions catapulted Cardoza-Moore into leadership of a movement to stop the
expansion of a mosque in Murfeesboro, Tennessee, where it had existed
peacefully for 30 years, claiming it was part of a plot targeting Middle
Tennessee because it is the heart of the Bible Belt.
Through
the organization she has founded, Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, and her
own public statements, Cardoza-Moore has became a key player on two fields that
many American Jewish leaders say they want to keep strictly separate: a staunch
pro-Israel evangelical out to recruit fellow Christians, and a fierce crusader
out to eradicate what she views as Islamic indoctrination in America’s
heartland but who is often accused of deep-seated Islamophobia.
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| Stupid Finnish Christian Zionists |
Nevertheless,
with her clear message to Christians across the world via documentaries and web
videos, Cardoza-Moore and her organization have become the darlings of American
Jewish donors committed to fighting BDS.
“The
Jewish community is starting to acknowledge that their only friends on earth
right now are Bible believing Christians,” Cardoza-Moore said in an October 25
interview. “I constantly call on Christians to speak out against the tremendous
atrocities that are going on. It is our responsibility as Christians to defend
the Jewish people.”
Locally,
Jewish organizations have bonded with PJTN strongly. “Energy and dynamism are
very important in making the case for supporting Israel,” said Mark Freedman,
executive director of the Jewish Federation of Nashville, which partners with
PJTN on pro-Israel advocacy campaigns. “Our community appreciates the
evangelical support for the state of Israel, and in terms of advocacy we
consider them great partners.”
PJTN
was founded in Nashville, Tennessee in 2001, in what Cardoza-Moore describes as
a response to the 9/11 terror attacks. “Together with our Bible in hand, we
came to understand 9/11 through the prism of ‘good vs. evil’ and we made a plan
to answer God’s call,” the group states on its website. Its mission is to
battle anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiments using TV and radio interviews,
and movies that the group says reach millions of Christians worldwide. The
media outreach, it claims, educates them “on their responsibilities as
Christians to uphold the protection and welfare of our Jewish brethren.”
The
group also strongly opposes a two-state solution to Israel’s conflict with the
Palestinians, defending Israel’s permanent retention of the occupied West Bank
and isolation of Gaza.
The
pro-Israel evangelical advocacy scene has been dominated for the past decade by
Pastor John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel, a national organization which
boasts more than 2 million members and draws thousands to pro-Israel nights in
Washington and across the country. PJTN is much smaller, with an annual budget
of $559,000 in 2013 and only three full time staffers. But the group’s stress on
media and its recent foray into anti-BDS activism have made the small Nashville
organization a growing presence in pro-Israel circles. Cardoza-Moore, who grew
up Catholic, discovered after visiting Israel’s Diaspora Museum in 2003 that
she may be a descendant of Portuguese Jews forced to convert during the
Inquisition. She began inquiring among family members, and heard that her great
grandfather, on his deathbed, told his children about the Cardoza family’s
Jewish roots.
Last
April PJTN was the driving force behind a resolution in the Tennessee state
legislature that condemned BDS as a form of anti-Semitism.
Though
only declarative, the resolution, which passed easily, was the first such
action taken by any state legislature. It was followed by legislation in South
Carolina and Illinois that barred businesses involved with BDS from doing
business with those state governments.
Cardoza-Moore
recently presented a framed copy of the Tennessee bill to Yuli Edelstein,
speaker of Israel’s Knesset, during a three-week visit to Israel. While in
Israel, she filmed her latest documentary, titled “Victims of Peace,” which,
she said, will “expose BDS” as anti-Semitic. In the film, now in production,
two Palestinians, one from Gaza and the other from the West Bank, tell
Cardoza-Moore they are grateful to Israeli employers who hired them and that
boycotting Israel will cause them to lose their jobs.
Her
work on behalf of Israel and taking on supporters of BDS have landed
Cardoza-Moore and her organization financial backing from many Jewish donors
known for their aggressive, uncritical support for the Jewish state.
The
Irving Moskowitz Foundation, which backs exclusively Jewish settlements in the
Palestinian sectors of Jerusalem, provided PJTN with a $70,000 donation in
2013. Other donors include Chicago’s Larry Hochberg, the former chair of
Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, a board member of the Zionist
Organization of America and a major donor to the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee; conservative talk radio host Dennis Prager, and Israeli-American
businessman Adam Milstein.
PJTN
was among the groups invited by Sheldon Adelson and other Jewish funders to
attend the Las Vegas kickoff of what is shaping up to be the Jewish community’s
most heavily funded anti-BDS operation, known as the Maccabees Task Force.
PJTN, like other participants, is now expected to pitch the Adelson-led
initiative with programs for funding.
But
while the group’s pro-Israel activity has been widely welcomed by the Jewish
community, its anti-Islamic actions do not win broad support.
The
Nashville Jewish Federation made clear its cooperation with PJTN is limited to
common interest areas concerning Israel and not to other activities of the
group aimed at Muslim Americans.
“It’s
tragic when you see Jewish organizations join forces with anti-Muslim
extremists, not only because of the obvious history of discrimination, but also
because it is counter-productive on many levels,” said Ibrahim Hooper, national
communications director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
In
2010, the Anti-Defamation League filed an amicus brief against PJTN’s attempt
to block building of the new Islamic center in Murfreesboro. ADL claimed that
attempts by Cardoza-Moore and others to stop the Islamic center project and
investigate alleged ties with extremists in Somalia and Gaza violated religious
freedom.
The
group’s legal actions to stop the mosque’s expansion were ultimately dismissed
by a federal appeals court in 2014 after a years-long battle.
Organized
opposition to the Murfreesboro mosque, said Hooper, “was seen as a watershed
moment for Muslims facing Islamophobia in America.” This was also the event
that prompted comedian and former host of the Daily Show Jon Stewart to
dispatch his “senior Muslim correspondent” Aasif Mandvi to Tennessee, for a
report centering on an interview with Cardoza-Moore, in which she said her
campaign is “about stopping the advance of radical Islam in America.”
Mandvi
turned to Cardoza-Moore and asks: “You do know I’m Muslim, right?” to which she
answers, without missing a beat: “Nobody’s perfect.” “It was comedy,” she told
the Forward, adding that she is constantly invited to United Nations
discussions on women’s rights in the Muslim world. “If I’m such an Islamophobe,
then why do they invite me to these panels?”
But
speaking at an August 2010 rally in New York against the intention to build an
Islamic Center in the vicinity of Ground Zero, Cardoza-Moore suggested she
viewed the emergence of Muslims in American as an alien phenomenon, at best.
“How many Muslims signed the Declaration of Independence?” she asked. “Or the
constitution?” The audience roared: “None.” “How many Muslims fought in our
revolutionary war?” she then asked and responded: “Zero.”
PJTN’s
next project will be focused on what the group views as the threat of extremist
Islamic content in school textbooks. “They’re indoctrinating our children with
pro-Islamic rhetoric that violates the Establishment Clause,” Cardoza-Moore
said. She pointed to a mention of Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli
teens in a pizza parlor as raising the question of the whether terror can be
justified.
While
PJTN’s main focus now is on BDS, it holds strong views opposing a two-state
solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. In 2013 Cardoza-Moore
produced the film “Israel Indivisible: The Case for the Ancient Homeland,”
which argues against division of the land into two states.
“Israel
has the right for the entire land,” Cardoza-Moore said. “There’s no reason
Israel cannot hang on to their land and continue allowing free life to the
Christians and Muslims in its territory.”
This
stance did not seem to prevent a group of five members of Congress, including
California Jewish Democrat Alan Lowenthal, from going on a PJTN-sponsored trip
to Israel in mid-October. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have
publicly supported a two-state solution.
Lowenthal
is endorsed by J Street PAC, a dovish group whose main issue is promoting a
peace agreement based on the division of the land.
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