John Hagee’s recent Hitler comments were entirely consistent with his theology and should not have come as any surprise to Jewish groups. Fulfilling Biblical prophecy has always been at the root of Mr. Hagee\u2019s support of Israel. Many Jews understood that but bargained that the motives for his support were less important than the fact of it, including his role in rallying other evangelicals and in raising money for Israel.
\nThis desire for allies has led Jews to downplay all sorts of Hagee comments. For instance, in his book \u201cJerusalem Countdown,\u201d he disparages modern Judaism:<\/p>\n
“Today they have a flag; they have a constitution; they have a prime minister and a Knesset. They have a police force, a powerful military might, and the world’s best intelligence agencies. They have Jerusalem, the City of God. They have a nation. They have everything but spiritual life.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
For Jews wanting the benefits of Hagee’s support without the problems, the toughest question is whether he really wants peace in the Middle East. He certainly believes that any two state solution — even if supported by the government of Israel — will bring down God’s wrath. “There will be grave consequences for the nation or nations that attempt to divide up the land of Israel,” he writes. “This is not a time to provoke God and defy Him to pour out His judgment on our nation for being a principal force in the division of the land of Israel.”
\nBeyond that, prophecy requires not peace for Israel but horrific war, an ultimate battle, with Iran as the aggressor, aided by the anti-Christ, who will be the head of the European Union. In the end, the war will prompt the Jews of Israel to accept the returning Jesus as the Messiah, and thereby gain their spiritual life. \u201cHe has dragged these anti-Semitic nations to the nations of Israel to crush them so that the Jews of Israel as a whole will confess that He is the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Hagee’s recent Hitler comments were entirely consistent with his theology and should not have come as any surprise to Jewish groups. Fulfilling Biblical prophecy has always been at the root of Mr. Hagee\u2019s support of Israel. Many Jews understood that but bargained that the motives for his support were less important than the fact…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n
Does Hagee Want Peace in the Middle East? - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/does-hagee-want-peace-in-the-m.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does Hagee Want Peace in the Middle East? - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Hagee’s recent Hitler comments were entirely consistent with his theology and should not have come as any surprise to Jewish groups. Fulfilling Biblical prophecy has always been at the root of Mr. Hagee\u2019s support of Israel. Many Jews understood that but bargained that the motives for his support were less important than the fact…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/does-hagee-want-peace-in-the-m.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-06-03T15:43:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Does Hagee Want Peace in the Middle East? - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/does-hagee-want-peace-in-the-m.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Does Hagee Want Peace in the Middle East? - Steven Waldman","og_description":"John Hagee’s recent Hitler comments were entirely consistent with his theology and should not have come as any surprise to Jewish groups. Fulfilling Biblical prophecy has always been at the root of Mr. Hagee\u2019s support of Israel. Many Jews understood that but bargained that the motives for his support were less important than the fact…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/does-hagee-want-peace-in-the-m.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2008-06-03T15:43:43+00:00","author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/does-hagee-want-peace-in-the-m.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/does-hagee-want-peace-in-the-m.html","name":"Does Hagee Want Peace in the Middle East? - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-06-03T15:43:43+00:00","dateModified":"2008-06-03T15:43:43+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/does-hagee-want-peace-in-the-m.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/does-hagee-want-peace-in-the-m.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/06\/does-hagee-want-peace-in-the-m.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Does Hagee Want Peace in the Middle East?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Atlantic, Slate, and many others.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/author\/swaldman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}