John Hagee.. The American Priest Who Pushes for the Great War in the Name of Christ | Politics

He is a religious man. You will not miss the extent of the exclusionary language he uses when listening to his speeches to his supporters. You will quickly realize that he speaks to his sect in ways that are not based on logic and that at the same time contain hostility towards other countries and religions. For example, he has indicated more than once that God sent Hitler to be a prelude to the establishment of Israel.

You might think that this is a normal event that happens in all countries of the world and in different religions and sects, but you will know that the matter is beyond that when you realize that Pastor John Hagee, pastor of Cornerstone Church in Texas, USA, is the head of an organization known for its great influence and power on American politics, “Christians United for Israel,” which in 2022 had a membership of, 10 million Member, meaning that the followers of this institution are more numerous than all the Jews in the occupying state, and more numerous than their number in America.

The observer would be mistaken if he assumed that the debate with supporters of Israel in the West, especially in the United States, is based on argument and evidence. The truth is that many of them are influenced by rigid religious ideas, far from the methods of rational deduction and scientific methodology that “Western civilization” cherishes, whether about the end of the world and the holy war of Armageddon, or about the return of Christ, which most of them do not believe will occur unless the Israeli occupation controls all of historical Palestine. Perhaps the most important promoter of these theories and the herald of the approach of the third and final world war, who greatly influences American policy, whether directly or indirectly, is Reverend John Hagee.

Christ is coming… but this time on the blood of the Palestinians

The Old Testament is filled with references that many evangelicals in the United States – and John Hagee is one of its most prominent figures – see as clear about a decisive war between good and evil that Christ will lead at the hill of Megiddo, located northwest of the city of Jenin, and that this coming of Christ will not happen unless the biblical prophecy of the Jews controlling the entire land of Palestine is fulfilled.

One of the most important references that these people rely on regarding the right of the Jews to the land of Palestine is a passage from the Book of Ezekiel that says: “And behold, I will gather the children of Israel from among the nations where they are scattered… and they shall dwell in the land which I have given to my servant Jacob… and they shall dwell therein, they, their children, and their grandchildren forever.”

But if it is about Bible prophecy, why do other religious denominations other than evangelicals not show this excessive enthusiasm for Israel?

The short answer is that the Orthodox and Catholic churches believe that the Church has replaced the children of Israel as God’s chosen people, and therefore the promises made by God to the children of Israel in the Old Testament have been abrogated in one way or another. Another very important thing is that both churches see the promises given to the children of Israel regarding the land and the kingdom as spiritual promises related to the coming of Christianity, and not literal political promises. Also, both churches have a firm belief that Christianity has abrogated any special status of a nationality or ethnicity per se.

Regarding the War of Armageddon, the Catholic Church believes in the return of Christ to defeat evil and then the resurrection, but it does not focus on specific scenarios for this to happen, such as an occupying force imposing itself on a land or otherwise, while the Orthodox Church views the War of Armageddon with a symbolic interpretation, as it is an ongoing spiritual war between good and evil, in which Christ will ultimately be victorious.

Although many Protestant denominations, such as the Presbyterian and Lutheran churches, also believe in a metaphorical understanding of the Armageddon war, and that Christ will not literally come to rule the world 1000 years after the end of the war, the majority of evangelicals and Protestants in the United States of America interpret those events mentioned in the Torah literally and therefore believe in Israel’s divine right to the Palestinian lands, and that the Antichrist will fight the State of Israel, and then Christ will come to save the world, and the Jews will convert to Christianity as a result of this return. Here comes the role of Pastor John Hagee as one of the most important promoters of the approaching Armageddon war and this religious vision.

John Hagee does not bother to give his audience historical or logical justifications, even if fabricated, for Israel’s historical right to the occupied Palestinian territories. He makes do with a simple religious argument, saying that the divine promise in the Torah gave Isaac and his sons the land of Palestine, and in return promised Ishmael a lot of money to his sons (Hagee cites God’s fulfillment of his promise of oil that was given to the Arabs’ land).

Since God is the one who owns the land, this means that He is the only one who has the right to give it to whomever He wishes, and He gave the Jews this land. Therefore, he also believes that the establishment of modern Israel after the displacement of the Palestinians in 1948 is a divine miracle. For him, Israel was not established by a decision of the Security Council, or by fighting the Zionist gangs that the world supported, but by a decision of God thousands of years ago.

From this standpoint, John Hagee believes that those who call for a two-state solution are hoping for a “crazy” solution, as God has already given the land to the children of Israel. Perhaps the irony here in Hagee’s speech is that when he criticizes Western leftists who call for a two-state solution, he says that this crazy solution is not only not possible, but “how do you call on us to make concessions to those who want to kill us just because we differ with them in religion?” And when he says this, he finds waves of applause, and no one notices that Hagee himself is the one calling for seizing the lands of others and waging a fierce war against them because their sovereignty over their land is not in harmony with his prophecy. Religious.

The American obsession with religious prophecies about the end of the world began in the 1970s, when Hal Lindsey’s book “The End of the World” became the best-selling book of the decade. The book predicted that the world would end in 1988, considering that the generation that witnessed the Palestinian Nakba and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 would be the last to live on earth. Hagee is thus an extension of a tradition that is highly influential among a large segment of the American people, and even American politicians, and this large segment does not waver in its passion for religious prophecies despite the failure of one prediction after another in trying to calculate the end and the approaching date of the great war in the Middle East.

John Hagee in particular has a knack for talking to his upper-class evangelical audience, always bringing them something to excite their eager imaginations for dramatic prophecies. Once, while explaining to them what he believed to be the biblical account of the world’s coming years, he brought them the throne of the Seven Kingdoms from Game of Thrones and played them a dramatic presentation on the screen about how the Messiah would come and broker a truce with a “two-state solution” in the Middle East, then the armies of Russia, the European Union and Egypt would declare jihad against Israel, and then the Messiah would come back and kill 4 out of 5 of those armies.

The man also has an interesting ability to twist any phrase in the Bible into an explanation of something that is happening at the moment, and at the same time he always reminds the audience of his own nature, he is a man who always performs miracles, and one of those miracles that he mentions with great pride as an amazing miracle is that when he called 400 pastors to the Christian Coalition for Israel, they all responded. He also reminds his audience that he has a direct connection with Jesus Christ, as he says that he first went to Israel in 1978 as a tourist and returned from it as a “Zionist,” because he saw a man at the Wailing Wall holding the Torah and crying in reverence. Jesus Christ inspired John Hagee, according to his account, that “this man who is crying is your spiritual brother and you know nothing about him and now he is afraid of you. I want you to do everything in your power to bring Christians and Jews together in an atmosphere of respect and love.”

Perhaps one of the most important concepts that Hagee helped to plant widely in the American evangelical mind, and which then went on to invade the culture in general, is the idea that criticizing Israel would mean, in short, invoking God’s curse, because God said in a verse from the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament addressed to the Prophet Abraham: “Those who bless you I will bless, and those who curse you I will curse.” According to a report by The Guardian, this verse has been widely transformed in the conviction of Christians who support Zionism from Abraham to modern Israel, as Abraham has been replaced by the Jewish people in this perspective, so that the way to invoke God’s blessing is to bless what the State of Israel does, collect donations for it, tour the lands it governs, give electoral votes to those who support it, and avoid criticizing it in any way.

It is no wonder that after the launch of the Palestinian resistance factions’ operation on October 7, 2023, Hagee reminded his YouTube audience of the verse, and then said with great ecstasy that Israel had begun to invade Gaza, and stressed the need to support Israel in any decision it would take and see as best to protect its people, and he also stressed the need for the United States to enter the ongoing conflict.

More importantly, pro-Israel Jews and others know very well Hagee's basic motive: he wants Israel to control Arab lands and wants to accelerate settlement, not because he wants the Jews to expand in the land, but because according to his prophecy, he sees that expansion as the key to the return of Christ, which will make the Jews embrace Christianity when they know the truth, as he believes.

Benjamin Netanyahu knows this very well. The Israeli right does not envision the end of history in the way Hagee does, in which Jews are nothing more than little soldiers preparing for the return of the Messiah they do not believe in. But that did not prevent the prime minister of the occupying state from saying at the annual conference of the Hagee Foundation in 2017: “We have no greater friends than the Christian supporters of Israel. I know that you always stand with us. You stand with us because you stand with yourselves, because we represent that common heritage of freedom that goes back thousands of years. America has no better friend than Israel. Israel has no better friend than America. Israel has no better friend in America.” From you“

Christian Zionism.. How does Hagee influence politics?

“I think most people understand why we need to fund Israel. They are fighting for their existence. … For us believers, there is a biblical command to stand with Israel, and we will do that and they will prevail as long as we are with them.” *Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson

John Hagee’s prophecies that he uses to sharpen white American minds are not just the prophecies of a religious man who ignites enthusiasm among his followers, but rather they are prophecies that drive politics. In her books: “Prophecy and Politics: Military Evangelicals on the Road to Nuclear War” and “The Hand of God: Why the United States is Sacrificing Its Interests for Israel?” American journalist Grace Halsell, who worked in the White House during the era of former US President Lyndon Johnson, tried to search for the secret that makes her country support the occupying state to this extent and justify all its mistakes, and even sacrifice its strategic interests for it. She found the answer in the saturation of the American mind – whether from the elite and officials and even many presidents or ordinary citizens – with Zionist evangelical prophecies.

At the ceremony to move the US embassy in the occupied state to Jerusalem, Pastor John Hagee was present with senior officials to “give blessings” on the transfer, which he believes proves the truth, that these lands have been owned by the Jews for 3,000 years until now, of course according to his interpretation of the Bible.

No wonder, then-Vice President Mike Pence, the evangelical, clearly stated: “We support Israel because of the sacred historical promise that those who support them now will receive God’s blessing.” Likewise, Mike Pompeo, Trump’s Secretary of State, was not shy about using the same explicit religious language. He was one of the most influenced by the idea of ​​the necessity of supporting the occupying state in order to hasten the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Armageddon war. He used to say that Trump was the messenger of divine providence to protect Israel. Evangelical preachers during Trump’s era organized special sessions in the White House weekly for some of its employees, in order to explain the book. holy And what that includes of prophecies of the end of time for them.

There are approximately 80 million Christian evangelicals in the United States of America, and there are also approximately 40 million people who are direct followers of Christian Zionism, of which Hagee is the most prominent symbol. This movement generally owns 100 television stations and 1,000 radio stations, and it also owns 80,000 priests who carry out missionary work.

John Hagee influences Israel not only indirectly through influencing American politicians or American voters, but his influence extends to become very direct and more than just rhetorical support. From 2001 to 2015, the Hagee Foundation donated more than $58 million to settlements and to the most extreme right-wing Zionist organizations. In 2021, Hagee raised more than $3 billion in donations for IsraelHis organization also sells Israeli flags for $2 each, and the money goes to charities in Israel, according to The Times of Israel.

Despite the overwhelming influence of Hagee and his colleagues on the American political imagination, the latest statistics show that things may change in the coming years. A poll conducted by the University of North Carolina revealed that younger evangelicals have become more inclined towards Palestine and social justice issues. After 40% of them supported the United States leaning towards Israel in 2015, only 21% supported this matter in 2018.

According to a report by the British Guardian, Hagee, who is now leading evangelicals in the United States, is in his eighties, but within the next 15 years there will be new leaders for the evangelical community. These leaders will find themselves facing new generations who believe in the justice of the Palestinian cause, and this will play a role in changing many of the things that are now firmly established.

The prevailing Western image has always been that Arabs, and Muslims in particular, are irrational and that their religious stories and “myths” govern all their movements, while the West is the platform of secularism, openness and rationality. However, a quick look at the growing role played by Hagee and his colleagues in shaping the American political imagination, in addition to his prominent presence in decision-making circles, and his pushing for American political actions that contradict the standards of moral justice, and justifying them through religious texts and the expected war of Armageddon, which prompted many to break the idols of Western values ​​that have prevailed for decades.