second comings

Michele Bachmann: Israel Is Amazing and All of Its Jews Need to Convert Now or Face God’s Wrath

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD - MARCH 08: U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) speaks during the 41st annual Conservative Political Action Conference at the Gaylord International Hotel and Conference Center on March 8, 2014 in National Harbor, Maryland. The conference, a project of the American Conservative Union, brings together conservatives polticians, pundits and voters for three days of speeches and workshops. (Photo by T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images)
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Photo: T.J. Kirkpatrick/2014 Getty Images

Throughout her political career, the former Republican representative of Minnesota Michele Bachmann prided herself on being a staunch defender of Israel. Whether the latest threat to the Jewish state emanated from terrorists in Gaza, the ayatollah of Iran, or the Muslim Brotherhood–controlled White House, Bachmann always stood in solidarity with the Netanyahu government. Now in her post-political life, Bachmann is preparing to defend Israeli Jews against the greatest threat of all: their own blasphemous religion.

Bachmann and Tony Perkins, president of the right-wing Family Research Council, discussed their recent trip to Israel on Perkins’s radio show last week. In the interview, Bachmann called Israel “a miracle of the hand of God,” but also noted that its Jewish citizens should convert as soon as possible because the Rapture is drawing near.

We recognize the shortness of the hour,” Bachmann says in audio captured by the website Right Wing Watch. “And that’s why we as a remnant want to be faithful in these days and do what it is that the Holy Spirit is speaking to each one of us, to be faithful in the Kingdom and to help bring in as many as we can — even among the Jews — share Jesus Christ with everyone that we possibly can because, again, he’s coming soon.”

Bachmann is hardly alone in fiercely defending the political platform of the Jewish state, while fiercely, if quietly, opposing Judaism itself. One of the Netanyahu government’s most reliable allies in U.S. politics is Christians United for Israel, a group of predominately Evangelical Christians whose support for Israel derives in part from an eschatological belief that the presence of Jews in their biblical homeland will speed the return of Christ. CUFI is headed by Texas pastor John Hagee, who wrote in his 2006 book that Adolf Hitler was a “half-breed Jew” sent by God as a “hunter” to drive Europe’s Jews back to “the only home God ever intended for the Jews to have – Israel.”

Despite such anti-Semitic rhetoric, Benjamin Netanyahu has maintained a warmer relationship with CUFI than with the Democratic Party, speaking at the former’s conference in 2012. Netyanyahu also met with Bachmann, herself a CUFI member, in 2013. At that time, the interim agreement of the Iran nuclear deal had just been enacted, and Bachmann assured the Israeli prime minister that she would oppose the dangerous deal.

Notably, President Obama and Netanyahu will be having their first face-to-face meeting since the Iran nuclear deal’s passage in Washington on Monday. The meeting is expected to be strictly business, as the two leaders discuss extending a ten-year military-aid agreement for Israel. Whether the Israeli people will use those weapons for protection against hostile nation-states or for fending off hoards of the damned after the Rapture depends on which “pro-Israel” Americans you believe.

Jesus Coming Soon, Says Michele Bachmann