To: chalu2 who wrote (15728 ) 7/5/2002 4:38:51 AM From: GUSTAVE JAEGER Respond to of 23908 Footnote on the lunatic Evangelical fringe:US Christian leader Bauer: Israel a priority for evangelicalsHerb Keinon Jul. 5, 2002 Former US secretary of state James Baker reportedly cursed Jews in a fit of anger at Jewish pressure on the first president George Bush a decade ago, saying Jews don't vote for the Republican Party. But Gary Bauer, one of the Christian Right's leading voices in the US, says not only are more Jews ready to vote Republican, they also have a whole lot of friends in the evangelical Christian community for whom Israel is a top priority. Bauer, a former presidential candidate and head of a Conservative think tank who left Israel after a five-day trip last night, said that in the two weeks before US President George W. Bush's speech on the Middle East, the Christian Right flooded the White House with e-mail messages. "The messages were powerful," said Bauer, who has a daily e-mail newsletter that goes out to some 100,000 people. "The message was, 'Mr. President, we pray for you every day, I believe God wanted you to be president. If you abandon Israel, you will never get my vote again.'" As to whether these types of messages really have an influence, Bauer said, "I do believe that in this White House, with Karl Rove who is a very bright and political man, it had an impact." But, he admits, not the only impact. "I think the president's instincts are right, and in the past when he got off message it's been the State Department and his father [who have been responsible]," Bauer said. "I think his instincts started reasserting themselves. I also think the information of [Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser] Arafat's payments to terror was also a factor." Bauer's trip, his first to Israel, was sponsored by a group of Orthodox Republicans called the Jerusalem Coalition, headed by Michael Landau, a real-estate developer from New York. During the visit Bauer met with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and delivered a strongly worded pro-Israel letter. "We believe Israel has the same right of self-defense that all sovereign nations enjoy,"the letter read. "We believe you have shown incredible restraint in the face of the wanton violence aimed at innocent Israeli civilians. We reject the notion that America or Israel should be passive in the face of such violence." The letter was signed by some of the leading lights on the Christian right, such as James Dobson, Charles Colson, and Jerry Falwell. But in a reflection of why some in the American Jewish community have trouble fully embracing the Christian Right's support of Israel, one of the signatories was a woman named Sandra Sheskin Brotman, whose title was "Messianic Jewish Concert Singer." Asked about this, and the suspicions some in the American Jewish community have of a hidden theological agenda in the Christian Right's support for Israel, Bauer replied, "Maybe we should have been more careful about that. For evangelical Christians there is an obligation to bring the good news, so to speak, but I am painfully aware of the history here, and it is not pretty. "We have some things to make up for," Bauer said. "I don't think Jews should be unduly concerned about this. Your faith is strong, and the people I meet all over Israel are proud of who they are and can defend the essence of what they believe."jpost.com