Apparently Glenn Beck has become too controversial, even for Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Network, and Beck is leaving at the end of June. Beck's anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have resulted in anger throughout the American Jewish community, regardless of politics or synagogue affiliation (or lack thereof).  The organization Jewish Funds for Justice delivered more than 10,000 petitions to Fox News urging that Beck be removed from the network.  This past January, Jewish Funds for Justice organized 400 rabbis, from every sector of Judaism, to sign an open letter to Rupert Murdoch.

However, in April, in a decision that appears to defy logic, Beck was named as the keynote speaker for the upcoming Christians United for Israel (CUFI) national summit in Washington D.C.  Beck had featured Hagee on his show numerous times, including interviews in which Hagee told Beck about the coming reign of the Antichrist and warned that the world as we know it would end in less than twenty years (and that was back in 2007).  Hagee gave the invocation at the evening event of Beck's Washington D.C. "Restoring Honor" in August 2010.

The choice of Glenn Beck as the keynote speaker for the CUFI summit is puzzling, to say the least.

A Public Relations Nightmare

The damage control has already started, with Glenn Beck rushing off on an unannounced trip to Israel, now shown in pictures on Beck's website.  Adding insult to injury, Beck's travel companion was none other than David Barton, famous for his pseudo-histories claiming that separation of church and state is a myth.  (Chris Rodda, a Talk2action contributor, has been countering Barton's "faux history" for years.)  Barton has become known nationally since Beck began featuring him on his Fox show and in Beck's online "university."

The unfolding public relations disaster appears to be a comedy of  errors. For one thing, the American Jewish community is generally devoted to defending separation of church and state, regardless of politics or the denomination of Judaism with which one is affiliated.  David Barton, of all people, has probably done more to indoctrinate young Americans against separation of church and state and in an aggressively Christian nationalist history than anyone in the nation today. He was an advisor to the Texas State Board of Education during its recent controversial changes to the state's social studies curriculum.  

Nevertheless, this is who accompanied Beck to Israel and has been featured on Beck's show discussing the upcoming event.

Another ironic detail is that David Brog, the only Jewish executive of CUFI, is the former chief of staff for Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.  Specter once wrote in the Harvard Journal of Law and History that Barton's

"pseudoscholarship would hardly be worth discussing, let alone disproving, were it not for the fact that it is taken so very seriously by so many people."

Since 2006, David Brog has marketed CUFI to Jewish leaders and communities and not surprisingly, he has already fired back  at Dana Milbank in an article published yesterday (June 19) at the the DC Daily Caller. Brog claims that Milbank has overlooked the fact that Beck has become a leader in fighting the "new anti-Semitism" and claims that Milbank found "the needle of anti-Semitism in this haystack of philo-Semitism."

Then Brog makes the incredible statement that Milbank has tarred Beck with guilt by association, as if Beck had never recommended that his millions of viewers read two of the most viciously anti-Semitic writers of the twentieth century - Elizabeth Dilling and Eustace Mullins.  (See Part One in this series, "Dana Milbank: Beck is 'Leading Purveyor of Anti-Semitic Memes in Mass Media.'")

Brog continues,

"Given the complete absence of any facts with which to back up his ugly accusation, Milbank resorts to the tired old tactic of guilt by association. Milbank leads his argument by claiming that of the thousands of guests that Beck has had on the air over the years, one guest -- G. Edward Griffin -- once made an anti-Semitic comment."

Actually, G. Edward Griffin heads Freedom Force International and is a self-proclaimed long term member of the John Birch Society, who served as on the staff and as a spokesperson in the 1960s.  He has done much to mainstream grand conspiracy theories claiming that the Council on Foreign Relations, a favorite bogey-man of the right-wing conspiracy theorists, controls the globe through 4000 dedicated "collectivists."  The nefarious acts of these powerful rulers include hiding the cure for cancer, falsifying HIV as a disease, working to depopulate the earth, and many other wild conspiracy theories.  And of course, at the top of Griffin's list of puppet masters is the Rothschilds.

Griffin is best known for his book The Creature from Jekyll Island in which he claims that the Federal Reserve was a secret plot by the Rothschilds to take control of American banking. (The book is endorsed on the back by Ron Paul and Willie Nelson, among others.)  Griffin claims that the Rothschilds were the puppet masters who manipulated and funded both sides in numerous European wars and the World Wars. A chapter titled "The Rothschild Formula" ends with a copy of a 1948 cartoon (at right) and a description of the Rothschild's unique character traits,

"cold objectivity, immunity to patriotism, and indifference to human condition."

G. Edward Griffin wrote in the right-wing Canada Free Press,

"I was delighted to know that someone, either Beck or his researchers, had spent a great deal of time studying The Creature from Jekyll Island. But what is even more encouraging is that several million viewers will be exposed to an hour of economic and monetary truth. This will bring us a giant step closer to actually slaying the Creature."

In a period of time when Americans are indeed suffering in the wake of numerous banking and finance abuses and when wealth inequity is greater than any time since the 1920s, the use of the Rothschilds as a simplistic scapegoat can be a dangerous ploy with horrific consequences.  

Those who promote these "New World Order" conspiracies are not at all critical of the real world political actions and removal of regulations which brought about today's concentration of wealth, but credit economic downturns to an ongoing cabal of a few power brokers who they claim are intentionally devaluing the American dollar in order to being about a socialist "one-world government." It is a way to shift the blame of economic downturns away from the failures to regulate capitalism to a shadowy cabal of so-called socialist/communist/fascist who fit neatly into the narrative of the coming one-world government of the anti-Christ found in Christian Zionist prophecy literature.

The Rothschild/ Federal Reserve conspiracy has been a favorite among right-wing Christian fundamentalists since the 1920s and 1930s, due to their obsession with what the role of Jews in the unfolding drama of the end times.  John Hagee has also claimed that the Rothschilds own the Federal Reserve and are intentionally devaluing the dollar.

A Tired Anti-Christian Slur?

In the article, Brog continues to attack Milbank stating,

"Milbank trots out the tired anti-Christian slur that Christians only support Israel to bring all the Jews back to their ancestral home and thereby speed the second coming of Jesus."

Brog then continues with one of his most deceptive and frequently used arguments, which he uses to promote Christian Zionist activism to Jewish leaders. First, he makes the assumption that anyone objecting to Christian Zionist prophecy-based activism is anti-Christian (which would make the vast majority of Christians anti-Christian). Brog then claims that Christian Zionist theology absolutely rejects the idea that humans can speed up the end times, but this is the belief at the heart of the "Israel Mandates" that are popping up throughout Christian Zionism. Both he and Hagee have frequently repeated this claim despite the fact that there are endless examples of Christian Zionists advocating that their followers take part in prophecy and help "prepare the way" for the return of Jesus, including from the CUFI directors with whom Brog works - Billye Brim, George Morrison, Robert Stearns, Stephen Strang, and John Hagee himself.

John Hagee and CUFI directors have had some success convincing Jewish American leaders that their purpose has nothing to do with with apocalyptic end times prophecy.  But simultaneous with marketing this message to the Jewish community leaders, Hagee continues to market bestselling end times prophecy books, like his 2010 book Can America Survive: 10 Prophetic Signs That We Are The Terminal Generation.

This fall the movie version of Hagee's 2006 book Jerusalem Countdown will debut. The book paralleled the three-part sermon series "Jerusalem Countdown" that included Hagee's infamous Hitler as hunter quote which resulted in John McCain's rejection of Hagee's endorsement.  Hagee claimed that the Holocaust and subsequent establishment of the modern state of Israel resulted in the physical restoration of Jews and Israel, but that another and more destructive round of violence would be required for the spiritual restoration of Israel.

The movie due to be released this fall, stars Lee Majors, Stacy Keach, and Randy Travis, and includes a  dramatization of the Rapture and subsequent events, complete with nuclear suitcase bombs. It is being advertised as "based on the novel" by John Hagee, but John Hagee did not market Jerusalem Countdown as a "novel."  He preached it from the pulpit as biblical prophecy and as fact.

Beck's Supporters

According to the Jerusalem Post, Likud MK Danny Danon, who chaperoned Sarah Palin around Jerusalem in March, is helping to organize Beck's event.  Danon is the Deputy Knesset Speaker and head of World Likud, and has worked closely with John Hagee and other Christian Zionists in the past, including a group called Worldwide Biblical Zionists.

In April 2010, Danon and Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon participated in the Freedom Federation gathering of Religious Right leaders at Liberty University.  Throughout the event Messianic Jewish violinist Maurice Sklar entertained the participants. The event included numerous apostles of the New Apostolic Reformation including Lou Engle, Rick Joyner, Harry Jackson, Cindy Jacobs, and Samuel Rodriguez.

This year's Freedom Federation gathering, Awakening 2011, was less Christian Zionist in tone.  However, there was at least one Jewish representative attending and that was CUFI's David Brog.  He spoke on a panel titled "Confronting the Culture: Engaging People of Faith" with Cynthia Dunbar, Rick Scarborough, and Rick Joyner. Following is a brief description of Brog's fellow panelists at this Christian nationalist event.

Cynthia Dunbar was also on the Texas SBOE panel which made the controversial curriculum guide changes for Texas public schools and led the group in prayer (seen in this RightWingWatch video) before the vote, claiming the United States is "a Christian land, governed by Christian principles."

Rick Joyner is one of the leading "prophets" in the rapidly growing apostolic and prophetic movement or New Apostolic Reformation which now monopolizes leadership of Christian Zionist activism.  Several CUFI directors are major leaders in the apostolic and prophetic movement.  Joyner has this to say about Jews in his book Overcoming Evil in the Last Days"

"The Jew is the embodiment of the humanistic spirit. They are a barometer of Humanity - embattled within and without. As Paul said, "From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for you sake..." (Rom. 11:28). They were hardened, or made hard to reach, for the sake of the gospel. This is, the Jew represents the "acid test" of our message. Until we have a gospel that will make the Jew jealous, we do no really have it right.This means not only having it right doctrinally, but practically in the way that it changes us and that we reflect it in our preaching of the gospel. Perhaps this is why we are exhorted to preach the gospel to the Jew first, because when we preach to the Jew, we will quickly find out the quality of our message."

Rick Scarborough is a self-proclaimed "Christocrat" and heads of Vision America, an organization devoted to "advancing the Kingdom of Christ on earth."  The organization gave its 2011 National Hero of Faith award to David Barton.

Glenn Beck's "Restoring Courage" Debacle

Glenn Beck's "Restoring Courage" event has been advertised on the websites of Israel-based Messianic Jewish ministries, including Maoz Israel, an aggressive proselytizing organization supported by Chrstian Zionists.  (Messianic Jews are Jews who have converted to Christianity but retain their Jewish identity.  Increasingly Christian Zionist missionaries present themselves as Messianics.)

Maoz Israel is led by Ari and Shira Sorko-Ram.  Shira Sorko-Ram was previously known as Carole Lindsey, the daughter of the late Gordon Lindsey, one of the leaders of the Latter Rain movement in the 1940s and 1950s and a forerunner of today's apostolic and prophetic movement.  

Gordon Lindsey's Dallas-based Christ for All Nations Institute has trained many of the missionaries who are working in Messianic missions throughout Israel, with the financial support of ministries and individuals in the United States and elsewhere.  Funds are raised through advertising and articles in publications like Charisma Magazine, (in graphic below) published by Stephen Strang, a CUFI director.

The following graphic is from a Maoz Israel report.

Maoz Israel is endorsed on its website by John Hagee, Pat Robertson, and Robert Stearns.  Maoz Israel's ministry includes the recent addition of Messianic missionaries Ron and Elana Cantor, founders of Messiah's Mandate, who worked for twenty years with Apostle Dan Juster's Tikkun, an international network of Messianic ministries. (Ron Cantor states on his Facebook page that he is a cousin of Rep. Eric Cantor but clarifies that his cousin does not share his Messianic beliefs.)

Apostle Dan Juster is a central figure in the international Charismatic Messianic networks and works closely with CUFI director Robert Stearns and International House of Prayer (IHOP) founder Mike Bickle and Lou Engle, founder of "The Call," on mandates to proselytize Jews around the globe in preparation for the end times.  Stearns is also co-founder of the Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem, which recruits churches to support and embrace Messianic Jewish ministries.

(Note that leaders from Lou Engle's The Call and Mike Bickle's IHOP are organizing Rick Perry's prayer event in Houston in August.)

CUFI director Robert Stearns wrote in his book Prepare the Way that their efforts are producing results never before seen in history, since they have employed the techniques of apologizing for the Holocaust, embracing Jews, and allowing them to keep their "Jewishness" when they become Christians.  He describes Dan Juster as a "sovereign vessel the lord has raised up to pioneer this End Time move of the Lord" and states about converted Jews,

"Our elder brother is risen from the dead!"

Incredibly, David Brog continues to claim to Jewish communities and leaders that Christian Zionists support for Israel has absolutely nothing to do with proselytizing Jews or preparing for the end times.  Supposedly they just love Jews and Israel, much like Glenn Beck.

The "Restoring Courage" event scheduled for August appears to be a further attempt to sanitize Beck's reputation.  Thus far, it has been a public relations disaster.
The event was described in Foreign Policy as "making it as embarrassing as possible to be an American supporter of Israel."  Author Joshua Keating continued,

"...it's troubling to hear Likud MK Danny Dannon describe this gold-shilling huckster as a "a true friend of Israel who is willing to speak out when so many are often silent." Having support for Israel, as a U.S. political issue, associated with Beck's brand, can only be a bad thing for the future of the relationship."

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.