Loading ...Last month Christians United for Israel (CUFI) – the largest pro-Israel organization in America with nearly 1.8 million members (and 1.2 million Facebook followers – 15 times as many as AIPAC) – held its ninth annual Washington Summit, with 4,800 delegates from all 50 states
. Founded in 2006, CUFI has held more than 1,700 pro-Israel events, including 260 formal “Nights to Honor Israel;” now hosts about 40 pro-Israel events a month; has a campus organization at more than 300 colleges; publishes a magazine; and run an active website. The Summit featured Prime Minister Netanyahu (on video); Ambassador Ron Dermer; five U.S. senators; former CIA director James Woolsey; columnists Charles Krauthammer, Dennis Prager, and William Kristol; several IDF members; and many others. The delegates lobbied their Congressional representatives (the principal talking point: any final deal with Iran must deny it not simply a nuclear weapon, but a “nuclear capability,” because “allowing Iran to develop all of the components of a bomb so long as they don’t put these components together is not a solution”).
I only intended to do a Night to Honor Israel one time, but because of all of the push-back that the anti-Semites gave us, I said, “There’s a real problem here that needs to be addressed.” So, I walked off the platform that night with my wife in one hand and the Consul General of Israel in the other, and I said, “We are going to have a Night to Honor Israel every year until they get used to it.”
And it got bigger and bigger, and we took it to national television, because I was on national television 37 years, and global television for 22 years, and it just got bigger and bigger and bigger and then in 2006, because of the strength of the Night to Honor Israel, we started Christians United for Israel.
Q: And have you experienced physical threats, or other threats over the last nine years?
PASTOR HAGEE: On a regular basis. That’s why I have all the security people with me, all the time. I live with them.
Q: [Your emphasis on the] failures of Christianity during the Holocaust – is that something that came from your theology, or from your parents, who would have lived through that and taught you? Where did that come from?