Why Am I Skeptical....

John Hagee wants our sympathy:

What has been disappointing has been to see my life's work - the great passion of my life ? mischaracterized and attacked. I have dedicated my life to combating anti-Semitism and supporting the State of Israel. In taking a stand for Israel I have received death threats from anti-Semites and neo-Nazis, and I've had the windows of my car blown out beneath the windows of the rooms in which my children slept. To hear people who know nothing about me or my life's work claim that I somehow excuse the Holocaust is simply heartbreaking.

You would think there would be a huge paper trail relating to these threats, with intense investigations by the local police and perhaps the FBI. Yet Hagee suggest that the FBI didn't investigate his report of these various anonymous threats and acts, all of which apparently date back to 1981. And what of the way he tells the story?

Later, he related a story of a similar event in 1981 at his church where a bomb threat was called in. When he informed the attendees of the threat, the Christians in the audience left the building quickly, but the Jews in attendance stayed put "as if I had said there would be kosher hot dogs available afterward."

Such a funny man.

But that's bypassing the central question. Hagee's "support" for Israel grows out of his religious belief, that God wants all of the world's Jews to congregate in Israel where, in the "end of days", they will either perish in the "sea of fire" or convert to Christianity. In Hagee's words, "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." Hagee's views in a literal sense may constitute "support for Israel", but it takes a great deal of imagination to construe them as also supportive of Jews.