Posted on 05/19/2011 5:10:30 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
Sunday service jarred by leaflets urging rights for Palestinians.
For the first time in the history of Cornerstone Church, pastor and TV evangelist John Hagee's sermon was interrupted by roughly a dozen protesters, who rained leaflets down on an audience of 6,000 and demanded an end to what they called the Israeli occupation of Palestine, before security officers removed them.
The incident happened during the 11 a.m. Sunday service, which was dedicated to the “moral imperative of standing with the Jewish State of Israel,” according to a press release issued by John Hagee Ministries.
Hagee began the organization Christians United for Israel five years ago. This was his third CUFI Sunday sermon. Churches around the country and the globe annually participate in the event, said Ari Morgenstern, spokesman for John Hagee Ministries.
Shortly after Hagee began his sermon, a demonstrator in the upper balcony started to throw leaflets to the congregation, showing images of dead Palestinian children and demanding that Israel return occupied land to Palestine, said G.R., one of the protest organizers who asked not to give her full name because she's received multiple phone threats since Sunday.
Two dozen protesters were scattered throughout the church, G.R. said. Half verbally demonstrated, while others recorded the proceedings on cell phone cameras.
They are all community activists from San Antonio, G.R. said, who came together last week to plan the event.
She said they chose May 15 because it is “al nakba,” the day Palestinians commemorate their displacement after Israel's founding.
Among the protesters' concerns were taking a “stand against the Israel government occupying Palestine and not allowing people to return to their homes” and “the use of military force and violence on innocent people,” G.R. said.
In a letter he sent to radio and television host Glenn Beck after the protest, Hagee wrote, “We support Israel because Israel has the right to exist! ... Israel has the right to defend itself from any nation or group of people that attack them.”
The protesters' compilation video shows them yelling, “Genocide does not bring honor to Israel,” and “How many children have you killed with your tithe?” as, one by one, security officers removed them from the church.
As the audience roared with applause, Hagee said, “It hasn't been this exciting in a long time.”
Officers issued 11 protesters written criminal trespass warnings issued under a single San Antonio Police Department case number. The protesters were told verbally about the warning, Morgenstern said. SAPD also arrested two of the protesters for outstanding traffic warrants.
According to Morgenstern, security officials also asked the protesters to provide identification and for permission to take their photographs, which, he said, they gave.
G.R. said the protesters were told they couldn't leave the church unless they agreed to provide the requested identification, their addresses, and to be photographed.
Following Sunday's events, CUFI Executive Director David Brog said in a written statement, “Of course Israel's not perfect. And of course reasonable people can debate Israeli policy. But to disrupt a Christian worship service to slander Israel with accusations of apartheid and genocide is the height of intolerance.”
And you personally know this how?!
How well did that line of thought work out for Jesus Christ? As I recall he didn't fear any man either and looked what happened to Him, by men.
Christ went to the Cross COMPLETELY of his own volition. He was in complete control of the situation.
What a ridiculous statement! Let your life be threatened and stand in a war zone... see if you aren't affected. Of course he has to have protection...so did Billy Grahm and others who have threats against them. It goes with the territory.......I suppose you also think we don't need the military or a police force if we're Christians. Sheesh!
Oh yeah. He laid down on the makeshift cross and nailed those spikes into his own body and then somehow managed to upright that cross and place it into the hole in the ground all by himself.
Don't be a doofus.
No, he knew he had to be rejected by Man and sacrificed to atone for Man’s Sin. YOU and I whipped Christ, and drove the nails into His Hands.
Palestine was the name given to Israel by the Romans when they demolished the Jewish state. It was derived from the name for the Philistines. The Romans changed the name purposely to destroy the memory of Israel for ever. But there was always a remnant of Jews in Israel even after the Roman destruction of the Jewish state.
If the Israelis wanted to commit genocide on the Palestinians, they would have done it a long time ago and there would be few if any Palestinians left at all.
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