Jews defend Hagee’s words
Jewish allies of the Rev. John Hagee rushed to his defense yesterday to say the Texas evangelist is not anti-Semitic despite Sen. John McCain campaign’s repudiation Thursday of the evangelist’s endorsement.
“John Hagee is one of the Jewish people’s best friends,” Los Angeles talk show host Dennis Prager said on the air yesterday morning. “Identifying John Hagee with anti-Semitism would be like identifying Raoul Wallenberg, the great Swede who saved thousands of Jews in the Holocaust, with anti-Semitism.”
Since 1982, Mr. Hagee has sponsored lavish “Nights for Israel” banquets to raise $30 million for Jewish and Israeli humanitarian causes. Then- Houston Mayor Kathy Whitmire proclaimed Nov. 17, 1984, “Pastor John Hagee Day.”
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In 2006, he brought 3,000 pro-Israel evangelical Christians to the District for a “Washington/ Israel summit” to push the Bush administration to better support Israel and to showcase CUFI. A July 18, 2006, banquet at the Washington Hilton attracted then-Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon and Israeli defense chief, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon.
The Catholic League, which had criticized the televangelist over statements taken as denunciations of the Roman Catholic Church, defended Mr. Hagee over the latest charges.
“I … found him to be the strongest Christian defender of Israel I have ever met, and that is why attempts to portray him as anything but a genuine friend to Jews — one for whom the Holocaust is the horror of horrors — is despicable,” League president Bill Donohue said Thursday.