"Pro-Israel"

John McCain has said that he is glad to have the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee (one would think so given McCain sought his endorsement), and although he has repudiated some of Hagee's offensive remarks, specifically his anti-Catholic ones, he has said that he agrees with Haggee's support for Israel.

As I've noted before, "supporting" Israel for Christian zionism has a history of anti-semitism and is not neccesarily about caring about the people of Israel so much as its about seeing that the Rapture occurs. Well, Talk 2 Action has uncovered the mother of all cases in points. Here's Hagee from a sermon in the '90s

"Again he said unto me “Prophesy unto these bones, and say unto them, ‘O you dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!” [Biblical reference: Ezekiel 37, New King James Version, “Dry Bones” prophecy], and he spoke to them and they stood and they became an exceeding great army - meaning they physically came to life. Now how is God going to bring them back to the land? The answer is fishers and hunters. The answer is given in Jeremiah 16, verse 15 and following. God says in Jeremiah 16 - “Behold I will bring them the Jewish people again unto their land that I gave unto their fathers” - that would be Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - “Behold I will send for many fishers and after will I send for many hunters. And they the hunters shall hunt them” - that will be the Jews - “from every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.” If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust... you can't see that. So think about this - I will send fishers and I will send hunters. A fisher is someone who entices you with a bait. How many of you know who Theodore Hertzel was? How many of you don't have a clue who he was? WOO... Sweet God! Theodore Hertzel is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew that at the turn of the 19th century said - “this land is our land, God wants us to live there”. So he went to the Jews of Europe and said, “I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel”. So few went, Hertzel went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the Holocaust. Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says - Jeremiah righty? - “they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks”, meaning: there's no place to hide. And that will be offensive to some people. Well, dear heart, be offended: I didn't write it. Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said, “my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come BACK to the land of Israel”. Today Israel is back in the land and they are at Ezekiel 37 and 8. They are physically alive but they're not spiritually alive. Now how is God going to cause the Jewish people to come SPIRITUALLY alive and say, “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is God”?"

Yes, you read that correctly. The Holocaust was the will of God. Adolf Hitler was an agent of the Lord, doing what had to be done because Jews didn't go to Israel like they were supposed to.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Hagee is anti-Semitic (although he most certainly appears to be part of the tradition of anti-Semitic zionism), but it does demonstrate how indifferent he is to mass death and horror if he thinks its helping to make Biblical prophesy a reality. Indeed, if you scroll through the Talk 2 Action link you'll see that Hagee is looking forward to war with Iran and expects that God will kill most Americans living via a nuclear strike.

So here's the thing. This is all rubbish, ok? There is no sky-god that wants a nuclear war to break out in the M.E. But if you think that there is one then that tends to make you support actions that you think are the will of your imaginary genocidal maniac deity, thus making your fantasy beliefs into self-fulfilling prophesy.

And this is the guy whose views on Israel and Iran the person campaigning to be Commander-in-Chief of this nation's armed forces wanted to get the endorsement of. This is a representative of a constituency that McCain wants to have the support of.

So can we now have a media frenzy worrying about how these sort of lunatic beliefs might affect a McCain presidency?

Update: There is no need for qualification. John Hagee is a flat out anti-Semite. I skipped over the Talk 2 Action post, but just now went back and read the whole thing to come across this part

In the following audio sermon, which I have put into a video [and that includes other viciously anti-Jewish statement from John Hagee], Hagee says:

- Jews are not "spiritually alive".I have a copy of John Hagee's "Prophecy Study Bible", which makes quite clear Hagee is talking about all Jews now living - whom Hagee singles out, from among all other non-Christians on Earth, to note that they specifically do not have living souls. Indeed, Hagee says the souls of all Jews now living are dead. Dead souls. McCain endorser John hagee says Jews have dead souls.

So for all you pundits out there like George Stephanopoulos - the next time Sean Hannity or some other brainless partisan noise machine pundit feeds you some smear about Obama and people whose views he has already repudiated perhaps you can think about this and have a Chris Mathews moment.