PASTOR JOHN HAGEE: ISRAEL’S FIGHT IS OUR FIGHT *****
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/11/24/standing-up-for-israel-2/
[Editors’ Note: Below is a speech given by Pastor John C. Hagee at the Restoration Weekend event hosted this past weekend by the David Horowitz Freedom Center in Palm Beach, Florida.]
Introduction by Dr. Bob: Thank you, Andrew, and good evening, everyone.
John C. Hagee is a remarkable man, with many talents. He is a pastor, a philanthropist, an author, and an inspirational speaker, as you will hear.
As a young pastor, he founded Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas — a nondenominational evangelical church which has grown under his leadership to more than 19,000 active members. But in addition to those 19,000 members, he reaches millions of people in 235 countries around the world, through his international television ministry.
As a philanthropist, his focus has been on helping the people of Israel. Over the years, John Hagee Ministries has raised more than $70 million to help humanitarian causes in Israel.
And to further his support for Israel in 2006, Dr. Hagee founded Christians United for Israel, or CUFI. CUFI is a grassroots international organization that has grown in four short years to over 500,000 members.
CUFI provides a platform through which every pro-Israel Christian in America can speak out and act in support of Israel. Each month, CUFI holds 40 pro-Israel events, including events such as Nights to Honor Israel, in cities across America. And in addition, it holds an annual summit in Washington, D.C., where CUFI delegates meet face-to-face with members of Congress to lobby and support [of] Israel, the promised land.
And with all that, he still finds time to write. He is the author of 28 books, including two that were on the New York Times Best Sellers List. His most recent book, “Can America Survive?” was published just a few months ago by Simon & Schuster.
I first heard Dr. Hagee in 2007 at the AIPAC Conference in Washington, D.C. Even there, among highly regarded public speakers, he stood out. He was without a doubt the most charismatic and dynamic speaker at the conference. He mesmerized the audience with both the content and the energy of his presentation and received thunderous applause and numerous standing ovations.
I am truly honored tonight to introduce to you this evening a very special man, a man with an important mission, which includes supporting our traditional American values, supporting the Constitution of the United States, and supporting the Jewish State of Israel. Ladies and gentlemen, Pastor John C. Hagee.
John C. Hagee: Thank you for the privilege and pleasure of speaking at this important gathering tonight.
I’d like to begin by thanking David Horowitz and the David Horowitz Freedom Center for all that they have done for the freedom of America, especially on our college campuses.
We all know how hard it is to stand up for truth on America’s college campuses these days, when pro-Israel speakers are being shouted down and pro-Israel students are being publicly ridiculed by professors, unbelievably. This is why I’m so very grateful to have friends like David Horowitz and the David Horowitz Freedom Center, providing invaluable information, training and support for those brave students who are willing to confront the lies and the religious hatred of radical Islam.
We meet tonight at a difficult and dangerous juncture for America and for the cause of freedom around the world. Like many of you here tonight, I have subscribed to the concept that the Jewish people are the West’s canary in the coalmine. History has repeatedly demonstrated that when the Jewish people are singled out for persecution, the freedom of all citizens is at risk.
Therefore, when the Jewish people are being attacked, all Americans should stand up and wake up, and express their outrage because we are next. As Americans, we must snap out of this politically correct fog and admit that we are at war with radical Islam.
This is a war of survival. This is a war of good versus evil. This is a war of light versus darkness. This is a war between those who love life and those who worship death. It’s an easy choice. But that’s the reality. And the reality is, like it or not, you and your children and your grandchildren are in this war. There will be a winner, and there will be a loser. And to the winner goes our children and our grandchildren.
And tonight, we must commit ourselves to absolute victory over radical Islam. No exception.
Today, the Jewish people are still our canary in the coalmine. It is the Jewish State in particular that serves as the West’s warning system. America must wake up to the understanding that Iran fully intends to destroy the United States of America. When someone threatens to kill you, you should take it seriously.
We must recognize those who threaten Israel have the United States in their sights. To anyone with eyes to see and ears that hear, it is clear that Israel is in the greatest danger it has faced since six Arab armies tried to strangle the Jewish State in the birth canal in 1948.
I know that during difficult days such as these, when it seems that the whole world is against Israel, many friends of Israel such as yourselves nervously scan the horizon for friends. You look toward the United Nations, which Dore Gold calls the Tower of Babel. And I agree. You look at Europe, where the ghost of Hitler is again walking across the stage of human history.
You open your newspapers and read about America’s universities, where Israel is being viciously vilified by students taught by American — taught by professors whose Middle Eastern chairs are sponsored by Saudi Arabia, whose fees are paid with petrol dollars that went through our gas tank. You look to America’s mainline churches and their initiatives to divest from Israel. You go to the bookstore, and you see slanderous titles from a former US President, and you feel very much alone.
I came here tonight to speak about Christians United for Israel, and the millions of evangelicals in America who have a deep, faith-based belief, to love Israel, to speak up for Israel, to stand up for Israel; to stand up enough to, once a year, annually, charge up Capitol Hill with 5,000-plus delegates from every state in the Union, visiting as much as 87 percent of the US Congress, saying, Stop pressuring Israel to give land to terrorists who will not recognize Israel’s right to exist.
I came here tonight to deliver a message from those 50 million of — for those 50 million evangelicals. And I want to say this very clearly. Tonight, Israel is not alone. Your fight is our fight; your enemies are our enemies. We’re in this together to the end.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a new day in America. The sleeping giant of Christian Zionism has awakened. Christians are joining Jews in speaking out against militant Islam. As you know, Ahmadinejad poses a threat to the State of Israel that promises nothing less than a nuclear holocaust.
I have been saying on national television, in churches and auditoriums across America, it’s 1938 all over again. Iran is Germany, and Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler of the Middle East.
We must stop Iran’s nuclear threat. And candidly toothless, limp-wristed sanctions from Washington is simply not going to get it done.
The only way to win a nuclear war is to make certain it never starts. Iran’s president has not limited his maniacal threats to Israel; he’s also asked fellow Iranians to imagine a world without America. That’s pretty clear. It’s a clear threat to destroy the United States of America.
I have something to say to the president of Iran. Mr. Ahmadinejad, do not threaten the United States of America. Do not threaten the State of Israel. Do not threaten the State of Israel, saying, “They will pass in a sudden storm.” In the Bible, whenever Pharaoh threatened the Jews of Egypt, he became fish food in the Red Sea. Whenever Haman threatened the Jews in Persia, which is modern-day Iran, he and his sons hung on the very gallows he built for the Jewish people.
Our message, Mr. Ahmadinejad — that threats against Israel have a way of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. You may be well speaking about your own demise when you say, “Israel will pass away with a sudden storm.” But you are not talking about Israel’s demise. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is watching you. King David writes, “The God that keepeth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” Christians believe there’s a spy in the sky, and he’s Jewish.
Mr. Ahmadinejad, the Christians of America will not sit by in silence and watch you plan and plot a nuclear holocaust. There will never be another holocaust, not on our watch, not ever.
Beyond the threat from Iran, there’s another, more subtle threat that concerns me. I am concerned that in the coming months yet another attempt will be made to parcel out parts of Israel in a futile attempt to appease Israel’s enemies in the Middle East. I believe that the misguided souls in Europe, the political brothel that is the United Nations, and sadly our own administration will once again try to turn Israel into what Churchill called crocodile food. Winston Churchill, one of my favorite statesmen of all time, said — and I quote — “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile in the futile hope that it will eat him last.”
In 1938, Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland was turned into crocodile food for the Nazi German beast. The Nazi beast smelled the weakness in the appeasers, ate the food, and then marched on to devour most of Europe and systematically slaughter six million people. Six million Jewish people.
We are again hearing calls to appease the enemies of Israel. Once again, those who would appease seek to do so at the expense of Israel. Israel is always the one called upon to sacrifice. They tell us that if we want the Sunnis and the Shiites to stop massacring each other in Iraq, then Israel must give up land. And if we want the Syrians and Hezbollah to stop murdering the leaders of Lebanon, then Israel must give up land. And if we want the Saudis to permit women to drive or vote, the obvious answer is that Israel should give up more land.
And if we want the sun to rise in the east and set in the west, the obvious answer is Israel should give up some more land.
Let me be very clear about this — Israel is not the problem here. Scapegoating Israel is not going to solve the problem. The problem is Arab rejection of Israel’s right to exist.
The problem is Israel does not have a legitimate partner for peace. The problem is radical Islam’s bloodthirsty embrace of a theocratic dictatorship that believes they have a mandate from God to kill Christians and Jews. The problem is the failure of moderates in the Arab and Muslim world to stand up and rein in these Islamic terrorists.
If the moderate Arabs believe that murdering Christians and Jews is wrong, then stand up and speak up. Your silence is deafening. Appeasement, my friends, is not the answer. To quote the great evangelical abolitionist [William] Wilberforce — he said, “Appeasement is nothing more than surrender on the installment plan.”
America should not pressure Israel to give up more land. And America must never pressure Israel to divide the city of Jerusalem.
What the Jewish people do with the city of Jerusalem is the business of the Jewish people, not the United States of America.
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