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W.’s Jews for Jesus Speech

Last week some people were getting in a bit of a flap about former President George W. Bush’s engagement to speak at a fundraiser for the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute (MJBI), whose chief aim is “to bring Jewish people into a personal relationship of faith with Jesus” by getting Jews to recognize that he is supposedly the Messiah, a means to an apocalyptic end wherein Jesus returns and those who have accepted him are raptured straight into heaven, while the rest of the human race, including Jews who don’t convert, will be wiped out with great suffering.

Amongst the paraphernalia sold off on the institute’s website is a dogtag bearing the Star of David, with “Defender” written in the middle of it. The description reads:

“God is raising up an army of believers to defend Israel, especially in these times more than ever. Wear this to represent your defense of Israel. In so doing, it will create conversations to give you opportunity to give a testimony of Isaiah 31:4-5.”

(For you and I greenhorns, that’s from the Bible, and it goes:

‘For thus says the Lord to me,

“As the lion or the young lion growls over his prey,
Against which a band of shepherds is called out,
And he will not be terrified at their voice nor disturbed at their noise,
So will the Lord of hosts come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill.”
Like flying birds so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem.
He will protect and deliver it;
He will pass over and rescue it.’

So there.)

Anita Gray, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said it was terribly disappointing Bush had chosen to speak to this group.

“He certainly has the ability to speak to whoever he wants,” she said.  “ But I don’t believe he embraces either the purpose or the mission of the group. Their goal is to convert Jews to Christianity, and I don’t believe he shares that purpose, and I wish he wouldn’t speak there.”

Rabbi Abraham Bensoussan, spiritual leader of an Orthodox synagogue in Cleveland Heights, said he was not surprised Bush would speak at the fundraiser dinner in Irving, Texas, as he believes “he was a member of that group all along.”

“I believe that is why he was friendly to the Jews and the state of Israel,” he said. “But I would definitely advise people to be cautious before they decide to go to such lectures.”

Truth be told, Bush’s appearance is completely in line with his religious beliefs, which are simply a given among born-again Christians like himself  – namely, that those who do not accept Jesus as Savior are going to hell.  From Bush’s perspective, not only is there nothing wrong with this promotion of the MJBI, (tickets for which went from $100 to $100,000,)  but it is the most moral and godly thing he can do because it seeks to spread the word of Jesus before the Second Coming and Armaggedon Day.  Some people think Bush did as much as he could to bring that about with his earlier interventions in the Middle East.  He once described his war on Iraq as a “crusade”.  His sidekick Rumsfeld initiated the engraving of Bible verses on bullets used by US soldiers in those wars.

“When you turn your heart and life over to Christ, when you accept Christ as the Savior, it changes your heart.  It changes your life.  And that’s what happened to me.” he said to a reporter when asked at the beginning of his term in Office as president, to elaborate why he chose Jesus as his favourite philosopher.

So, anyway, what did number-one-fan speaker George W. have to say that night to his agog audience of Jews for Jesus?  I couldn’t wait to read a transcript.  A week later I’m still waiting.

What happened?  All these headlines – “Jewish leaders furious at Bush speech”, “Jews for Jesus speech causes uproar”, “criticized”, “draws fire” – BEFORE the event, but not a peep afterwards?  Was it supposed to be a story, or not?  Do we have to PAY to read it?  Has it been suppressed?

For, yes, they probably realised that it would be a bad move to openly reveal the insane pontifical claims of George W. Bush and make the American public aware of what danger they are in from the corrupt and psychotic leaders they elect, and decided to quietly hush it up.  But it will come out, as all things do, and I’ll be waiting to read it then.

In the meantime, all this talk of George and Jesus takes me back to events at the beginning of the century.  Many of the collages I made at that time feature the aforementioned pair.

Here are a few of them –

bushjesus israelflagmd bushconversion bushcrucifix bushcrusader bushrabbi

Michael Dickinson can be contacted at his website http://yabanji.tripod.com/