July 20 was the 13th day of Israel's Operation Protective Edge, and the deadliest. On the morning of July 21, as they trickled into the annual Christians United for Israel conference, the mostly American supporters of the Jewish state walked past muted TVs blaring the latest damage reports from this-or-that foreign correspondent. More than 100 Palestinians died in one day; more than 445 Palestinians since the operation started.
The supporters of CUFI moved up the convention center escalators and took their seats for a plenary session. Onstage were the first guests, all recognizable from Fox News - Weekly Standard editor-in-chief Bill Kristol, onetime CIA director James Woolsey, and the Council on Foreign Relations fellow Elliott Abrams, a presidentially pardoned veteran of foreign policy disasters on two continents. Sitting right next to them was John Hagee, the burly Christian Zionist pastor who founded CUFI in 2006 He leaned into a microphone, passionately explaining why supporters of Israel should not be tricked by casualty reports.
"Since July 8, more than 1,000 rockets have been launched into Israel by Hamas from Gaza," said Hagee, who speaks with a captivating rumble that could make a brunch order sound like a lost gospel. "Two-thirds of Israel's population has had to run to bomb shelters, having 90 seconds to save their lives."
The objective of Hamas, said Hagee, "is to win the media war with dead civilians. We've come to Washington to ask our government to stop demanding for Israel to show restraint."
Comment: Here we go again with the odious and pathetic 'argument' that Hamas is guilty of 'self-genocide'. It's unbelievable that anyone can take this garbage seriously, especially from a man who follows that with a call to stop the military restraint. What military restraint?? Israel is doing its best to murder as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. And this 'man of God' wants to see more carnage??
Comment: Yep, this is the same Kolomoisky behind the Odessa massacre. He also has strong ties to Israel, which stood to benefit from the MH17 disaster, timed to distract from the ground invasion of Gaza.