A Friend Indeed

John Hagee has some odd ideas about Jews that, as a Jewish person, make me uncomfortable. Jews, as most people know, have suffered a lot of persecution over the years. According to Hagee, we were getting what we deserved:

It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God's chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day.

Mark Kleiman points out that Abe Foxman didn't used to have much truck with this sort of thinking when it arrived in a different context, denouncing the "simplistic, counterproductive, biased and bigoted perception" as "blaming the victim" since "the cause of anti-Semitism is anti-Semites." But Hagee thinks anti-Semitism is God's justified punishment for the Jews. Thus when his organization succeeds in pressuring the U.S. and Israel to adopt a foreign policy that leads to Israel's destruction at the hands of a Russo-Arab alliance, the plan will finally be fulfilled.

What does Foxman have to say about all this Hageean nuttiness? He thinks it's just fine since Hagee's pro-Israel. Obviously, we're not supposed to give too much scrutiny to the content of Hagee's "pro-Israel" views since in an ordinary sense deliberately seeking the destruction of the Jewish state and the deaths of all its citizens wouldn't be considered an especially pro-Israel stance. I believe that even Hamas has sometimes hinted at a desire for an accommodation.