Birth Pangs of a New Christian Zionism (Page 3)

Toward Tribulation

Brog first encountered Hagee in 2005, shortly after Brog left his job as Senator Specter's chief of staff. Both Brog and Hagee happened to be invited by evangelical publishing magnate Steven Strang to speak at an evangelical mega-church's "Night to Honor Israel" in Orlando, Florida. At the time, Brog was "researching" a book he planned to write on evangelical-Jewish relations. "I was just curious," he said, "are these guys really some evil people working for Armageddon as the media portrays them?"

Any concern in Brog's mind that evangelicals harbored nihilistic motives for supporting Israel was dispelled, he says, once he and Hagee sat down and chatted. It was then that Hagee revealed his vision of a massive new Christian Zionist lobbying organization. Brog expressed enthusiasm for Hagee's idea and touted his political experience. Hagee was sold. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. "I thought it was the most important thing I could do, not only for Israel but for America," Brog said of his decision to work for the preacher.

A speech in November 2005 by Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman blasting the Christian right as the "key domestic challenge to the American Jewish community" was the moment for Brog's emergence. During the late 1990s, Foxman had heaped praise on Christian Zionists and paid to reprint a pro-Israel op-ed by Ralph Reed as a prominent ad in the New York Times. Foxman's criticism provoked Brog to step forward in his new identity.

In an op-ed article published on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, he wrote: "There is indeed merit to the agenda pursued by Christian conservatives. Evangelical Christians are rock-solid supporters of Israel--a fact that the Jewish community has belatedly begun to acknowledge and appreciate."

Brog's rebuke to Foxman was echoed with a chorus of Christian-right outrage, including a blunt threat from Don Wildmon of the American Family Association. "The more [Foxman] says that 'you people are destroying this country,' " Wildmon said during a radio broadcast, "[the more] some people are going to begin to get fed up with this and say, 'Well, all right then. If that's the way you feel, then we just won't support Israel anymore.' "

Since the controversy stirred up by his comments, Foxman has muted his criticism of the Christian right. Even more, he has offered his qualified acceptance of CUFI. "On the one hand, we need to welcome him. On the other, we need to be cautious about embracing it," Foxman said last month to the Jerusalem Post about Hagee and his organization.

Brog's recently published book, Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State, expands his case for Jewish acceptance of evangelical political goals. Brog told National Review that his book has universal appeal and will help anyone to "better comprehend the birth pangs of what in time will be a very important alliance." The phrase "birth pangs" is clearly understood by evangelicals as a scriptural citation from Matthew 24, which refers to the apocalyptic struggle that will usher in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Yet the thrust of Brog's arguments is targeted toward a Jewish audience suspicious of evangelical motives. Brog's thesis rests on the premise that while Islamic anti-Semitism poses an existential threat to Jews, Christian anti-Semitism is a bygone phenomenon that died the moment the Allies seized Hitler's bunker.

To explain the psychology of those Jews who think otherwise, Brog invokes the stereotype of the shtetl Jew. "Many in the American Jewish community are also living in the past, stuck in European ghettos," Brog wrote. "In an alternative reality built on traumatic communal memories, millions of Jews continue to crouch, fingers on their triggers, surrounded by bloodthirsty Christians who view them as a replaced, deicide people. Yet the world has changed dramatically in recent decades, and the enemy they fear has long since become a friend." As proof, Brog cited the outpouring of evangelical support for Israel.

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