Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

San Antonio is a battlefront in the Mideast fight (support for Israel)
San Antonio Express News ^ | October 15, 2006 | Abe Levy

Posted on 10/15/2006 3:06:28 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

Recently in San Antonio, divergent groups of people gathered to hear speeches, watch documentaries and coordinate their efforts in righting the wrongs — as they perceive them — of a region eight time zones away. One audience sat immersed in the saga, as told by her parents, of a woman killed by an Israeli bulldozer and hailed as a martyr for the Palestinian cause in the Holy Land.

Members of another audience viewed a documentary confirming their suspicions that global terrorists, including militant Palestinian Muslims, threaten American citizens and Israel's existence.

And yet another audience, this one inside the 5,000-seat megachurch pastored by John Hagee, readied for next weekend's three-day annual event honoring the Jewish people and Israel — something Hagee calls a commandment of God to Christians.

These groups are passionately seeking to win the hearts and minds of San Antonians regarding the complex and disputed question of what peace means for Israelis and Palestinians.

Their tools include documentaries, guest speakers and Web sites, but they realize one advocate in this debate has the biggest forum: Hagee.

The pastor and televangelist will take center stage at the 25th annual "Night to Honor Israel" at his Cornerstone Church.

For the first time, the event is touted as "national" in scope and presented by Hagee's 9-month-old lobbying group, Christians United for Israel, which aims to unify Christian Zionists as a political force.

He touts Christian Zionism — the belief that the creation of Israel fulfills a biblical prophecy that signals the approaching return of Christ — through worldwide broadcasts, best-selling books and national interviews.

His emergence as its most visible leader practically has made San Antonio the unofficial headquarters of the movement.

It's also a reminder for Palestinian advocacy groups in town how big a shadow Hagee casts.

"We're a small group compared to Hagee," said Jacob Nammar, founder of Palestinians for Peace and Democracy, a 2-year-old San Antonio-based group. "... We're a little potato, but we're trying to do our best."

Hagee didn't respond to interview requests for this article.

The caliber of speakers for this year's Night to Honor Israel reflects how much momentum he's created in 30-plus years of work to support Israel: James Woolsey, a former CIA director; Gary Bauer, a former Republican presidential candidate; and Lt. General Moshe Yaalon, a former Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff.

Hagee's Christians United for Israel, or CUFI, has raised a reported $8.5 million-plus for Israeli hospitals, orphanages and other Israeli causes. CUFI drew more than 3,500 people in July to Washington for its first conference and major lobbying effort. Its goal is to set up chapters in every congressional district.

Such growth as an international powerhouse spurred at least one protester in September to hold a sign up in front of Hagee's church during a Sunday service. It read: "Stop bombing Lebanon and Palestine" with a depiction of bombs dripping with blood.

"I feel like there's a backlash against Hagee in San Antonio," said Rhett Smith of San Antonio, a Methodist. "It seems overwhelming. If he's raising the millions of dollars he says for Israel, I think it's just adding fuel to a problem. It seems to me to be trying to dominate a lot of the areas of the Holy Land."

Differing views

In San Antonio, the organized Jewish community has a record of steady support for Israel, bringing in speakers of its own and creating programs — both for information and pro-Israel advocacy through its umbrella organization, the Jewish Federation of San Antonio. However, federation members are mixed in their views about Hagee and Christian Zionists, ranging from suspicion and sharp criticism to partial appreciation and full endorsement.

Some — while they share Hagee's support for Israel's statehood — feel Hagee's views make them out to be pawns in his end-time theology that the creation of Israel was a key step toward bringing about the Second Coming of Christ.

Others part ways with Christian Zionists because they don't share their evangelical views on abortion, gay rights and separation of church and state.

One Orthodox Jewish congregation, Rodfei Shalom, is a staunch supporter of Hagee. Its rabbi, Aryeh Scheinberg, is a regular speaker at the Night to Honor Israel.

Like Hagee, the members believe the Holy Land's peace rests in part on whether moderate Muslims confront the militant branches of the Muslim world.

"Islam is not a religion," said Walid Shoebat, a speaker for Night to Honor Israel and a former Palestinian Liberation Organization member who converted to evangelical Christianity. "It is a civil code and a form of government to be established through the whole world."

Shoebat also is a pundit in the documentary, "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," which is being sold at Cornerstone Church and was the centerpiece of a 9-11 memorial by Rodfei Shalom and attended by about 600 people.

The movie draws comparisons between Nazi Germany and militant Muslims today who hate Israel and exploit the Palestinian struggle in a quest for world domination.

"Israel is not the cause of global jihad. Israel is an excuse — like a scapegoat — for these religious fanatics to establish Islamofascism," said Bobbie Ghitis, chair of Rodfei Shalom's Israel Public Action Committee. "It's easier to blame someone for the ills of society and therefore divert the attention from the real goal."

Hagee and other evangelical Christian leaders worldwide are a cause for concern to the 1-year-old Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism, whose eight-member board includes Ann Helmke of San Antonio.

Helmke, a Lutheran minister and director of the peaceCENTER in San Antonio, is among a group of U.S. Christians who think Christian Zionism has given their faith a bad name.

The institute's board includes one rabbi active in the Jewish peace movement. It's critical of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, especially its refusal to withdraw from Palestinian territories after the 1967 war.

At its core, the institute wants to correct the notion that the Bible commands unconditional political and military support of Israel, when Jesus' teachings spoke of love and mercy for all mankind. It also questions why Palestinian Christians often are left in the cold in Holy Land debates when they supposedly are practicing the same faith as Christian Zionists.

"Christian Zionism is eroding my own tradition," Helmke said. "It's not part of the love, mercy and compassion of my faith. It breeds more hatred and fear."

At least two local churches and one mosque have studied materials produced by the institute. Board members recognize Hagee's influence and the growth of Christian Zionism, factors that have awakened them to the need for greater activism.

"Our goal is not to give cheap criticisms of Israel, but we want to look at the log in our own eye. I think we finally realized our churches have been silent too long," said Robert O. Smith, a Lutheran minister from Chicago and institute board member. "We need to speak for those who have no voice, which would be the Palestinians."

Smaller forums

For the most part, the Palestinian cause finds audiences in San Antonio at college campus auditoriums and small meeting halls in community centers. Event organizers say it's hard to compete with Hagee, a U.S. foreign policy that favors Israel, and a Jewish lobby that works to maintain Israel as America's ally. They also say they've been called anti-Semitic. Attempting to counteract this stigma, many have turned to documentaries with first-hand accounts and footage from the Holy Land to spark local conversation.

One movie shown in San Antonio, "The Iron Wall," highlights the grief caused by Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories and the Israeli-built wall in the West Bank.

Another, "Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land," points out mainstream media bias and censorship in reporting the Palestinian struggle. And a yearlong series by the Esperanza Peace and Social Justice Center has brought speakers and a locally produced art exhibit.

One event was the presentation by the parents of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old killed in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza. Israeli officials have said the death was accidental, but the matter remains unresolved and has intensified the work of Palestinian rights groups.

Her parents, Craig and Cindy Corrie, showed maps of Israel with land formerly under Palestinian control, pictures of Palestinian homes hit by Israeli bullets, and photos of their daughter. They also showed a video of Rachel, days before her death, standing in Gaza amid piles of rubble.

"I feel like what I'm witnessing is a very systematic destruction of people's lives," Rachel said.

The message rang true for Pancho Medoza, a Catholic who went with his San Antonio church 10 months ago to visit the Holy Land.

"As a Christian — from my childhood — I was taught about the Bible and the Jewish people," he said after the presentation. "You read a lot about the Holocaust. Now, I'm seeing the other side of the coin. I see there are a lot of holocausts."

Common ground

Sister Martha Ann Kirk, a religion professor at University of the Incarnate Word, helped to organize the showing of "Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land" in late August. In the Holy Land debate, she said she tries to maintain neutrality and has befriended both Israelis and Palestinians during frequent study trips to the region. She's a regular participant and speaker at local interfaith gatherings, where she urges understanding of both sides of the conflict and a peaceful means for resolution.

When Kirk gave the introduction for the pro-Palestinian documentary to about 100 people she opened by speaking about the campus' Holy Land Garden.

Consisting of two planters in front of a large classroom building, the garden has plants from the Holy Land that are mentioned in the Koran and Hebrew and Christian Bibles: Egyptian mint, frankincense and olive trees, among others.

More than a year ago, Christians, Jews and Muslims dedicated the plants. Their views of peace didn't necessarily coincide, but they wanted to make a symbolic stand for solidarity.

If the plant life of a common region can share the same soil, why can't people from that region do the same? Kirk asks.

"The descendents of Abraham in a small part of Earth or the planet can and need to be better relatives, caring for the Earth and sharing the water and developing plants that give us beauty and nourishment," she said.

She's made eight research trips to the Holy Land and spent half a year on a sabbatical there. She's interviewed Jewish parents who've lost their children because of violence. She's spent time with Palestinian families in refugee camps, listening to their struggles. And she's apologized for her own faith of Christianity producing some leaders who've mistreated the Jewish people.

She said her job as a professor and spiritual leader in San Antonio is mostly to pray and have hope for Palestinians and Israelis to broker peace one day.

"May they not only find co-existence," she said, "may they begin to discover the humanness of the other."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: christians; israel; johnhagee; palestine
One audience sat immersed in the saga, as told by her parents, of a woman killed by an Israeli bulldozer and hailed as a martyr for the Palestinian cause in the Holy Land. Rachel Corrie
1 posted on 10/15/2006 3:06:29 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: All
Oct 15, 2006 - BBC mounts court fight to keep 'critical' report secret The BBC has spent thousands of pounds of licence payers' money trying to block the release of a report which is believed to be highly critical of its Middle East coverage.

The corporation is mounting a landmark High Court action to prevent the release of The Balen Report under the Freedom of Information Act, despite the fact that BBC reporters often use the Act to pursue their journalism.

The action will increase suspicions that the report, which is believed to run to 20,000 words, includes evidence of anti-Israeli bias in news programming.............

2 posted on 10/15/2006 3:07:53 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

3 posted on 10/15/2006 3:11:53 AM PDT by Paleo Conservative
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

4 posted on 10/15/2006 3:13:18 AM PDT by Paleo Conservative
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Paleo Conservative

Too bad Israel didn't use bulldozers to level all of that jungle called Gaza.


5 posted on 10/15/2006 3:22:17 AM PDT by fireman43
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
San Antonio: Home of the Alamo.

I wonder what the next nickname for the town is going to be?

6 posted on 10/15/2006 4:01:10 AM PDT by moonman (`)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fireman43

"Islam is not a religion," said Walid Shoebat, a speaker for Night to Honor Israel and a former Palestinian Liberation Organization member who converted to evangelical Christianity. "It is a civil code and a form of government to be established through the whole world."

This is a powerful statement in that it moves islam out of the 'religion' category and puts it into the 'secular' category. Once islam is removed from our Constitution's protection as a religion we can then begin to prosecute it as the cult of murder it truly is.


7 posted on 10/15/2006 4:15:33 AM PDT by ByteMercenary (9-11: supported everywhere by followers of the the cult of islam.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Palestinian Christians have been driven out of Bethlehem and everywhere else in PA controlled areas. Who are these
pretentious PA sympathizers trying to deceive? The only ones who benefit from their pretentiousness are the Islamic Palestinian Jihadists who see them as useful idiots.

To those who accuse supporters of Israel of being being "Christian Zionists" ---- Thank You. It's not a perjorative term, but a compliment:

"They who trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion which cannot be removed but abideth forever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people forever." [Psalm 125:1]

"For the Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation." [Psalm 132:13]

"O Daughter of Zion . . . I will dwell in the midst of thee. And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day . . . and the Lord shall inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again." [Zechariah 2:10-12]


8 posted on 10/15/2006 4:42:12 AM PDT by Uncle Chip
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Go Hagee! He's a powerful force against islamofascism, whether you agree with him or not.


9 posted on 10/15/2006 4:53:40 AM PDT by tkathy (The Real Republican (RR) way is sticking to the issues and not finger pointing.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife
"The descendents of Abraham in a small part of Earth or the planet can and need to be better relatives, caring for the Earth and sharing the water and developing plants that give us beauty and nourishment," [Sister Martha Ann Kirk] said.

Dear Sister, I wouldn't use that analogy. If you have read the Bible, you find that most of the bitter fights are between relatives and resources! Cain slew his brother. Abraham's wife and slave both had sons by him, and Ishmael and Isaac and their families hated each other. David's multitude of wives led to one son raping his half-sister.

Maybe they don't want families. Maybe being good, polite neighbors suffices.
10 posted on 10/15/2006 5:11:35 AM PDT by GAB-1955 (being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the Kingdom of Heaven....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

I got lost in Cornerstone Church once. That place is seriously creepy.


11 posted on 10/15/2006 6:48:54 AM PDT by LongElegantLegs (You can do that, and be a whack-job pedophile on meth.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife; SJackson; yonif; Simcha7; American in Israel; Slings and Arrows; ...











If you'd like to be on or off this
Christian Supporters of Israel ping list,
please FR mail me ~
  -  -

There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had
spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass. (Joshua 21:45)

Letter To The President In Support Of Israel ~
'Final Solution,' Phase 2 ~
Warnings ~


"The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets...."—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Holocaust Chronicle ~

The future of Arab controlled Gaza.

" ... It's time we recognized the nature of the conflict. It's total war and we are all involved. Nobody on our side is exempted because of age, gender, or handicap. The Islamofacists have stolen childhood from the world."—FReeper Retief
"Palestine is the wrong name for their State. It should be called Anarchy."—FReeper sgtbono2002
"Then let's wait and see what the Arabs do after they take Gaza. There's nothing like Arab reality to break up a Jewish fantasy."—FReeper Noachian
A student told his professor he was going to "Palestine" to "fight for freedom, peace and justice,"—Orwellian leftist code words that mean "murder Jews."
The Nature Of Bruce ~



Click The Pic To Donate

12 posted on 10/15/2006 7:11:36 AM PDT by Salem (FREE REPUBLIC - Fighting to win within the Arena of the War of Ideas! So get in the fight!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Paleo Conservative
Mmmmmm.... pancakes.
13 posted on 10/15/2006 7:33:45 AM PDT by Ukiapah Heep (Shoes for Industry!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Rack itt I hear of John Hagee he getting together with Daystar do this project Daystar is another Christian station


14 posted on 10/15/2006 10:05:34 AM PDT by SevenofNine ("Step aside Jefe"=Det Lennie Briscoe)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SevenofNine

Watch yourself speaking without knowledge regarding Gods servant's.

Your right some are not on the up and up. But I would be careful. There are some who actually hear from God.


15 posted on 10/15/2006 11:34:59 AM PDT by Texas4ever (Anything off the dollar menu :))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

Comment #16 Removed by Moderator

To: moonman

Putting things in perspective -

This story (either side of it) didn't even make the local news in San Antonio. If it did, the citizenry would certainly have a counter protest against the Palestinine Advocacy groups. (I was proud when San Antonians protested one of Clinton's visits).

As for the Hagy mega-church, we'd just as soon it be in Dallas. The man can preach, but it's certainly a business.


17 posted on 10/16/2006 6:36:31 PM PDT by Tenyaka
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: moonman
One correction to the previous post - the local broadcast news didn't run the story.

No body reads the San Antonio Depressed-News (where the article originally came from).

18 posted on 10/16/2006 6:43:16 PM PDT by Tenyaka
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Tenyaka
Thanks for your reply. Reminds me of a story that Texans would love ...

A Texan was in a bar bragging about the proud heritage of bravery by Texans. "Take for example: only 200 Texans took on over 5,000 Mexicans at the Alamo ... fought down to the last man!"

At the other end of the bar was a guy from Boston, MA and he replied back, "Hey! You guys from Texas ain't the only guys with a proud heritage for bravery. Ever hear of a guy by the name of Paul Revere?"

The Texan is thinking and says, "Paul Revere ...hmmm ... Paul Revere? Oh YEAH! Ain't he the guy who ran for HELP?"

19 posted on 10/17/2006 9:34:07 AM PDT by moonman (`)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Cincinatus' Wife

Sorry to be posting so late on this thread, but as a Texan I apologize for some of the Catholic religious in San Antonio. I have a hard time taking anyone who has done this:
http://www.dotm.org/spring-summer2003.htm
seriously.


20 posted on 10/18/2006 5:37:16 PM PDT by voiceinthewind
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson