Re: all those in NewOrleans get a new free house and a new car from Oprah yet the people in Slidell and Mississippi won't get shit....
Racism is alive and well....
LOL... Gimme a break! I don't pity the crackers. Had Mississippi's Jesus Freaks NOT sent all their donations to the "poor settlers" of Gaza and the West Bank so that the latter can resettle in lavish houses/apartments in Tel Aviv or Netanya, they would still have enough money to buy themselves new houses!!
I'd advise Mississippi Jesus nuts to tap their Israeli friends. After all, US-Israel solidarity is a two-way-street, isn't it? Jewish fanatics living (ILLEGALLY) in the Gaza Strip got an average $250,000 per household to pull the plug on their Greater Israel fantasy --that was courtesy of the US taxpayer. Time for your Israeli friends to fill the kitty!
Gus
Footnote:
EVANGELICALS FLOCK TO ISRAEL'S BANNER
By Tatsha Robertson
Boston Globe October 21, 2002
Judy and Jerry Ball, born-again Christians from the Bible Belt, did not know any Jews and did not care about Jewish issues until about five years ago, when Judy Ball received what she described as the ''calling'' to urge fellow Christians to pray for the security of Israel.
''I didn't have any love for Israel. I didn't know about Zionism. I didn't know anything about the Jews,'' said Judy Ball, 61, as she stood in the Israeli Embassy, wearing a gold Star of David around her neck. ''But my heart is changed.'' The two retired educators from North Carolina belong to a large and growing network of conservative Christians who have evolved into unlikely, but important, allies of Israel in the United States. Called Christian Zionism, the movement has rolled across the nation, from Pentecostal churches in Mississippi to congregations in Colorado and parts of Massachusetts. The movement's leaders include Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.
The Christian Zionists are driven by a literal interpretation of the Bible, which they believe prophesied the establishment of a Jewish state in 1948 as a prelude to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Christian Zionists have raised millions of dollars for Israeli causes, and lobbied the Bush administration and Congress to support the expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
Several thousand participated in a Christian Solidarity for Israel Rally, which was sponsored by the Christian Coalition, the fundamentalist political group, earlier this month in Washington.
''This rally is to say there are people, there are millions of us,'' said Robertson, the coalition's founder. ''We will stand with Israel.'' Such support, however, has drawn a skeptical reaction from some Jewish leaders, who question the wisdom of the alliance because conservative Christians believe that Jews will accept Jesus after Judgment Day, or ''the end of days.'' ''The problem I have is with eschatology, the view of the end of days. They are very supportive of the Jews to get back to Israel, but it is a means to the end,'' said Robert O. Freedman, a professor of political science at Baltimore Hebrew University.
Not all Christians believe that the establishment of a Jewish state in the Mideast is a sign of the end of time, which is to culminate in the battle of Armageddon, fought in Israel. According to this reading of biblical prophecy, many Jews will die and the survivors will accept a messiah. '' We believe the messiah is Jesus Christ,'' said the Rev. James M. Hutchens, president of Christians for Israel USA.
That and another belief of many Christian Zionists, that God will give the Holy Land to Christians, infuriates many Jews. But that prophesy has not led Israel to reject Christian support in the here and now. ''What is interesting in the whole debate is a lot of Israelis are willing to say they are tactical allies, and who knows what will happen in the end of days. Meanwhile, a lot of Jews are willing to cooperate because Israel doesn't have a lot of friends in the world,'' Freedman said.
Shari Dollinger, officer of interreligious affairs at the Israeli Embassy in northwest Washington, described the support from Christian Zionists as heartfelt and significant.
The government of Israel has acknowledged conservative Christians' willingness to help and has eagerly courted them. Last week, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with thousands of American Protestants in Israel.
The embassy hosts monthly meetings - the Balls attended a week ago - to promote dialogue between Jews and Christian Zionists.
Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, is a skeptic of the alliance who suggested that Christian Zionists' vision of an apocalyptic future could have a bearing on the present.
''Those who see the increasing violence in that region as a fulfillment of the building of Armageddon might well oppose American efforts to defuse tensions and bring stable peace,'' Saperstein said. ''That could be dangerous to Israel, to the Arabs, and to America.'' Saperstein also questioned whether the Christian right's support is motivated by its positions on domestic issues: ''If some in the religious right believe their support of Israel will make Jews more accepting of tearing down the walls of church and state and to issues of women's right to choose or dismantling of social welfare - well, they are sadly mistaken.'' Hutchens and Stanley Wachtstetter, a Pentecostal minister from Mississippi, asserted that their church's support of Israel is based solely on its religious belief in the state of Israel.
Wachtstetter, who attended the same embassy meeting as the Balls, said that as a child he attended a Pentecostal church in Indiana. At the time, he said, he knew only one Jew, and did not believe in the liberal causes embraced by many American Jews.
However, Wachtstetter said he had always loved Israel. ''I would not be able to be a minister in a Pentecostal church in Mississippi if it was not for Israel,'' he said.
Bridges for Peace, the oldest Christian Zionist group, has contributed more than $20 million to immigration and social-assistance programs in Israel over the last five years. The combined support for Israeli programs from Christian Zionist groups runs into tens of millions of dollars a year, said Bridges for Peace chairman and president Clarence Wagner.
Falwell has estimated the number of Christian Zionists at 70 million, a figure that includes evangelicals, Pentecostals, and other conservatives. Not all those groups share exactly the same beliefs about Israel.
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