News Brief

The leader of Reform Judaism has a “troubling disrespect for the truth,” Pastor John Hagee said.

His comments were in response to the call by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, for Jews to dissociate themselves from the evangelical leader. Yoffie in a speech last week said Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel, advocates hard-line policies opposing territorial concessions that “would mean disaster for Israel, and would lead to diplomatic isolation, increased violence and the loss of Israel’s Jewish majority.” Yoffie also cited reports of Hagee’s attacks on Catholicism.

In a conference call Monday, Hagee said Yoffie had misrepresented his views.

“Rabbi Yoffie’s speech demonstrates not only a lack of respect for me but a troubling lack of respect for the truth,” he said in a prepared statement. Sharp attacks describing a group of Christians as “a great whore,” a “false cult system” and an “apostate church” targeted Christian anti-Semites, not Roman Catholics, he said. On territorial compromise, Hagee said, “When it comes to the issue of land for peace, it is true that I and many other Christian Zionists have grown skeptical of territorial concessions after watching the results of Israel’s withdrawals from Southern Lebanon and Gaza. However, CUFI’s fundamental philosophy from day one has been that Israelis and Israelis alone have the right to make the existential decisions about land and peace.”

At a rally of his organization on Sunday night in Jerusalem calling for the Israeli capital to remain united and under Jewish control, Hagee announced that his group would give $6 million to 16 Israeli causes.