As the JTA news service reports today, "Christians United For Israel, a pro-Israel evangelical group, features on its website a photo of Jerusalem with the city's holiest mosques wiped out."The JTA story actually misses the nub of the controversy ; the Dome of The Rock, considered the 3rd holiest Islamic site in the world, has been removed from the image of the Wailing Wall and environs featured in CUFI's website logo. The symbolism inherent in the logo casts a disturbing light on the tactical alliance between American Jews and CUFI founder John Hagee's new political lobbying group. The possibly incendiary nature of such symbolism to the Islamic world raises the question of why American Jewish groups and leading American politicians have associated with a leader such as John Hagee whose political views would be considered within Israeli society to be out on the extremist or even violent political fringe.
As a possibly intentional provocation, the elimination of the Dome Of The Rock from CUFI's website logo is consonant with John Hagee's repeated vilification of Islam. But is it consonant with US foreign policy or the foreign policy positions American Jews would choose to support ? The troubling nature of CUFI's logo raises the issue of the extent to which Hagee has been granted a place, recently, on the American national political stage and of his access to prominent US politicians.
CUFI's founder, Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee, spoke before a substantial portion of the US House and Senate, as a keynote speaker at the Israel America Public Affairs Committee convention in Washington DC in February 2007, and Hagee routinely enjoys private meeting with top members of the GOP such as Senator John McCain and House GOP Minority Speaker Roy Blunt. John Hagee has also repeatedly discussed, publicly and in his writing, his belief that, because history is unfolding exactly as described in Biblical prophecy, the destruction of the Dome of The Rock and the subsequent rebuilding of a Jewish temple on the site is inevitable.
Pastor Hagee's, and CUFI's, political positions have no counterpart within Israel mainstream society. Rather, such views are held, in Israel, by groups considered to be on the extreme political fringe. A veteran Israeli journalist consulted for this story stated that, in mainstream Israeli political sentiment, actions, conspiracies, or even thoughts concerning the destruction of the Dome Of The Rock are considered "abhorrent" and repeatedly stressed the extremely marginal nature of such beliefs within Israeli society.