-Caveat Lector- >From http://www.middleeast.org/launch/redirect.cgi?num=36 &location=http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.07.12/news7.html
JULY 12, 2002 | current issue | back issues | subscribe | Chicago ZOA Chapter Honors Televangelist Robertson By ALANA NEWHOUSE FORWARD CORRESPONDENT In another sign of the growing closeness between Jewish and Evangelical Christian groups, a regional branch of the Zionist Organization of America has decided to honor televangelist Pat Robertson at its annual Salute to Israel Dinner next week. The Chicago chapter of the ZOA selected Robertson for its State of Israel Friendship Award because of the decidedly pro-Israel slant of his Christian Broadcasting Network and his television show, "The 700 Club," as well as Robertson's personal support for Israel at a time when the Jewish state has been isolated in world opinion. "We wanted to give our thanks to one of our Christian friends," said the Chicago chapter's executive director, A. Yami Isaacs. "We chose Dr. Robertson, based primarily on 'The 700 Club' and its presentation of the situation in Israel, and on his benevolent work in Israel." Board member Judi Duckler, who along with her husband Harold will also be honored at the dinner July 14, concurred. "Their motives are maybe not 100% like ours, but they want to help Israel," she said of Robertson and his followers. Although Robertson has received tributes from Christian-Jewish interfaith groups, as well as from the State of Israel, this may be the first award that the minister has received from an American Jewish organization, according to Christian Broadcasting Network spokeswoman Angell Watts. "He considers this a great honor," she said. ZOA representatives said they were undisturbed by the more controversial aspects of Robertson's politics and theology, which views the return of the Jews to Israel as a necessary precursor to the resurrection of Jesus — ushering in a messianic age that will also include the conversion of 144,000 Jews to Christianity. Robertson ruffled Jewish feathers in 1991 with the publication of "The New World Order," a book arguing that a conspiracy exists to control the world, led by Jewish banking families such as the Rothschilds and Warburgs. In the mid-1990s, Jewish anti-missionary groups criticized Robertson for featuring "Hebrew Christian" missionaries and converts on his network, and broadcasting missionary messages into Israel from a station in southern Lebanon. "There's a pragmatism and day-to-day living that we're more concerned with," Isaacs said. "I would prefer to look at the practical, and right now, we need to get support for Israel." As examples of this support, Isaacs cited the network's treatment of the standoff last spring at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem — "he was one of the first to represent it as a hostage situation," Isaacs said — as well as the unceasing Christian tourism to Israel at a time when many Jewish groups have canceled their trips. But some people disagreed with the Chicago group's decision. "We wouldn't do it," said the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman. "He's not deserving, but I have no objections to other groups honoring him." In April, Foxman sent Robertson a letter protesting the network's broadcast of an Easter cartoon "saturated with sinister caricatures of Jews reminiscent of the anti-Semitic stereotypes promulgated only in the darkest periods of Christianity." In a letter written in reply, Robertson described Foxman as the Democratic Party's "principal secret agent" whose "focus is not the defense of worldwide Jewry, but the domestic political agenda of the Democratic Party." The assistant executive director of Americans for Peace Now, Lewis Roth, argued that the evangelical practice of targeting Jews for conversion to Christianity cannot be swept under the rug. "While it's all well and good to make common cause over Israel, Jewish groups have to understand that their motivations for being engaged in this issue are not the same as our community's — and, in some cases, run exactly opposite to ours," Roth said. Curiously, the ZOA finds itself on the other end of the sort of critique that it normally lobs at other organizations. In 1996, it excoriated the ADL for honoring New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Isaacs thinks that was a different case entirely. "Tom Friedman presented a Saudi peace plan which threatened Israeli security," he said, citing a more recent example of Friedman's writing than those cited by ZOA six years ago. "The Armageddon, which will come in thousands of years, I don't think will affect Israel now. What Friedman proposed would." The national president of the ZOA, Morton Klein, said that he was not personally aware of Robertson's missionary work, and had not read or heard about the controversial ideas in his book "The New World Order." "We are against missionary work," said Klein, adding that it was not reason enough to deny Robertson an award. "I love my wife and there are many issues on which we disagree. I like Pat Robertson, but there are many issues that we may not agree on," he said. Klein disputed the notion that in exchange for their support of Israel, Jews would be expected to support the social agenda of the Evangelical Christian community. "No Christian leader — and I talk to almost all of them — has ever asked me, 'If I speak out in favor of Israel, will you support me on this?'" Klein said. "Never." "If a social issue comes up on which we don't agree with Robertson, we'll raise it then," Isaacs said. "It's not a joining of forces, we're not becoming blood brothers. 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