Get ready for the pro-Israel NRA

[SecularMotion]

The largest pro-Israel organization, with a membership of more than 2 million passionate voters, Christians United for Israel, will be forming a lobbying and political entity (a 501(c)(4) group, in IRS parlance), CUFI Action Fund, that aims to do for Israel what the NRA does for Second Amendment rights. It will announce the move to more than 5,000 members who have gathered in Washington for its annual national conference.

The operation will be headed by evangelical heavyweight and longtime pro-Israel advocate Gary Bauer. “Gary Bauer is someone that has the respect and confidence of the evangelical community,” CUFI founder Pastor John Hagee tells me in an exclusive interview. Bauer says he will have a multimillion-dollar budget and a staff of a dozen to lobby Congress, run independent ads, support pro-Israel candidates and target those who do not put support for the Jewish state at the top of their priority list.

For Bauer, CUFI Action Fund is needed more than ever. “It is needed because the West is under severe attack,” Bauer tells me. “Israel is an outpost of [Western] civilization in one of the most dangerous and hostile parts of the world.” He continues, “Because Israel and the U.S. are attached at the hip and the heart,” Bauer argues, the fate of Israel and the U.S. and the necessity to defeat Islamic radicalism are essential, lest we “sink into another Dark Ages.”

The effort, in one sense, is a recognition that the old collegial, bipartisan model embodied by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is not suited to a time when the White House is hostile to Israel and support for Israel is plummeting on the Democratic side while isolationism lures some on the right. It is not enough simply to pat on the back lawmakers who cast votes in defense of Israel’s security and urge already friendly lawmakers to vote for Iran sanctions or military aid to Israel.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2015/07/12/get-ready-for-the-pro-israel-nra/

[Iggo]

1. This should be interesting.

[LittleBlue]

2. Ummm Gary, one already exists

It's called AIPAC. It isn't like Christian fundies weren't already doing this.

[geek tragedy]

3. "when the White House is hostile to Israel"

they are so delusional.

[KamaAina]

5. Apparently "hostile" has another meaning

hos.tile (adj.) 2. Refusing to fawn over.

[SecularMotion]

4. Kick

[aikoaiko]

6. Wow. The NRA has become a metaphor for "political muscle". Thanks, WaPo.

Thanks, WaPo.

[Takket]

7. Hostile to Israel lol

Which one of the billions if dollars we send them every year to make sure Palestinian statehood never becomes a reality is hostile?