JustASC

HuffPost’s Sam Stein  has audio of Rev. John Hagee explaining in a 1990s sermon that God allowed Hitler to carry out the Holocaust because “God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.” 

Writes Stein:

Since McCain secured the endorsement, both his campaign and Hagee have been pressed to explain a series of derogatory remarks the Reverend made about the Catholic Church, including his reference to the institution as “the Great Whore.”

Hagee has since apologized for those remarks. His interpretation of the role of the Nazis could be harder to dismiss, in part because McCain and Sen. Barack Obama are expected to compete heavily over the Jewish vote come the general election, in part because McCain has said he admires Hagee’s commitment to Israel, but mainly because similar theories have found their way into much of the Reverend’s writings.

Don’t count on it. Neither Hagee nor McCain will pay much of a price because Hagee’s religiously inspired craziness, unlike Wright’s, takes him to a PRO-Israel place. (Same thing re: his anti-Catholicism. Don’t expect Jewish groups to get too upset by a minister who blames the Holocaust on fellow Christians.)

The pro-Israel Jewish community that’s most exercised about Obama-Wright is least inclined to criticize a pastor, like Hagee, who puts his Christian Zionism at the center of his political activism.

Pro-Israel groups long ago made peace with Christian Zionist theology, in which, when you take away all the goodwill and financial and political support (which is not to be sneezed at), Israel and the Jews are ultimately pawns in God’s greater plan for Christian redemption.

But as any Israeli diplomat will tell you, we’ll argue about that when the Messiah comes (or comes back). Until then, they’re happy for the support.