David Hazony at Commentary stirs up a cartoon controversy with which to beat the Forward:
… It’s a fake ad for a week-long evangelical trip to the Holy Land, and it expresses all the anti-Christian fears that lurk in the heart of many an American Jew. Obese and monstrous Evangelicals are shown going to Israel, praising Hitler as a “Servant of the Lord,” and looking forward to the “mother of all Holocausts for Jews and Muslems who don’t convert.” There are fake ads for T-shirts praising the right-wing mass-murderer Baruch Goldstein… It is so far from the liberal, tolerant views that I think most Forward readers adhere to, that one wonders how it got by the editors.
The cartoon is by Eli Valley, and the whole thing can be seen here. Of course it’s somewhat crude, but as a satire of apocalyptic Christian Zionism (which is not the only variety of Christian Zionism), it generally hits home. Pastor John Hagee famously said that “Hitler was a hunter” sent by God to persuade Jews to move to Israel; Hal Lindsey has enthused over the thought of the Jordan Valley “covered with blood five feet high”, adding the nice detail that the blood will flow rather than coagulate due to radiation. Various Christian Zionists have warned that two-thirds of the world’s Jews will be included in this massacre. Praise for Baruch Goldstein is going too far, but some Christian Zionists have been happy to support far-right groups such as the self-declared “Sanhedrin”.
In reference to other panels of the cartoon, both John Hagee and the late Jerry Falwell have warned that the anti-Christ will be Jewish, and Christian Zionists such as Billye Brim have fantasized about the destruction of the Dome of the Rock (and in 1969 a mentally-ill Armstrongist set fire to the Al-Aqsa mosque). And while many Christian Zionists have been somewhat squemish about stating clearly the shortcomings of Judaism and the need for Jews to “accept Jesus” to avoid damnation – using instead terms like “Judeo-Christian” – very few leaders of the movement have formally accepted the “Dual Covenant” idea, which teaches that Judaism and Christianity are both valid.
The BBC broadcast a documentary about an evangelical coach tour to Israel back in February. I blogged it here.
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Seems accurate to me, what’s the problem
ditto