Name: Somer

Date: June 29, 2006

Subject: Christians United for Israel [CUFI]

Message: You wrote:
We are also supporting and participating in the "Christians United for Israel" Summit in Washington DC July 18-20. More info: http://www.cufi.org/

My question is; are they helping the so called settlers from Jesha. If so I could not find anything about this on the website. If not, why support this organization?

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Dear Mr. Somer,

Thank you for your correspondence and question. We do currently support the efforts of Christians United For Israel [CUFI] for a number of reasons. The most prominent reason being that this has the potential to be the first real voice of biblical Christianity to speak truth to the US Congress concerning Israel.

I personally attended an anti-disengagement rally in Crawford, Texas a little more than a year ago, which turned out to be a real disappointment. Pastor Jim Vineyard from Oklahoma put forth a strong effort to speak out against the disengagement, and even though there were around 5000 participants, it ended up being a "Baptist" rally with very few exceptions [a handful of Messianics]. The only media coverage was in Waco and it was negative.

Since then we supported Stephen Strang of Strang Communications in an event called "A Night to Honor Israel". This event is held yearly in San Antonio, Texas, and is completely sponsored by Pastor John Hagee [a close friend to Stephen Strang] and the congregation he shepherds at the Cornerstone Church. Mr. Strang felt that if it was successful in San Antonio it could be done successfully in other cities as well, so he brought it to Orlando, Florida. His goal was both to raise awareness in the Christian community of the need to have a biblical perspective concerning Israel and to put that perspective into action by raising 100,000 dollars to purchase an ICU level ambulance for Israel. We personally questioned Mr. Strang at that time concerning Israel's use of the ambulance, i.e. would it be free to cross the "green line" into the communities of Judea and Samaria. He expressed emphatically that there would be no restrictions placed on the ambulance and its use.

The Christians United for Israel organization is the brain child of pastor Hagee. Although he is not spear heading the rally in Washington D.C. it is strongly under his influence. Pastor Hagee is outspoken concerning practically everything and repeatedly preaches the need for Israel to stand strong on G-d's promises and not give up any of the land G-d gave to her. There is strong support for this event from many other sources as well, including Americans For a Safe Israel [AFSI]. Again, the hope is that this effort can cross denominational lines and bring together an audible voice that the US Congress will have to heed.

Blessings from the Tzemach Institute for Biblical Studies,

Jim Wingerter
Director of Multimedia Communications