By ARI SOFFER, ARUTZ 7—
Leading Republican Senator and Christian supporter of Israel Ted Cruz (R-Tx) was booed off stage at a gala dinner in support of the Middle East’s embattled Christian minority, after voicing support for Israel.
Cruz was the keynote speaker at the event, hosted by the recently-founded In Defense of Christians (IDC) organization. In his speech, he declared that Christians “have no greater ally than Israel” – the only state in the region whose Christian population is growing as opposed to shrinking.
“Tonight, we are all united in defense of Christians. Tonight, we are all united in defense of Jews. Tonight, we are all united in defense of people of good faith, who are standing together against those who would persecute and murder those who dare disagree with their religious teachings,” Cruz said, according to The Daily Caller.
“Religious bigotry is a cancer with many manifestations,” he continued. “ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, state sponsors like Syria and Iran, are all engaged in a vicious genocidal campaign to destroy religious minorities in the Middle East.
“Sometimes we are told not to loop these groups together, that we have to understand their so called nuances and differences. But we shouldn’t try to parse different manifestations of evil that are on a murderous rampage through the region. Hate is hate, and murder is murder. Our purpose here tonight is to highlight a terrible injustice, a humanitarian crisis.”
But some audience members clearly didn’t agree with his call for unity among non-Muslims in the Middle East, and began to boo and shout for him to get off the stage.
Responding to the heckling, Cruz retorted: “Those who hate Israel hate America. Those who hate Jews hate Christians. If those in this room will not recognize that, then my heart weeps.
“If you hate the Jewish people you are not reflecting the teachings of Christ. And the very same people who persecute and murder Christians right now, who crucify Christians, who behead children, are the very same people who target Jews for their faith, for the same reason.”
But even as IDC President Toufic Baaklini called for the hecklers to allow Cruz to speak, the booing and calls of “leave the stage” only got louder, and Cruz had clearly heard enough.
“If you will not stand with Israel and the Jews then I will not stand with you. Good night, and God bless,” he concluded, before abruptly walking off the stage.
The Middle East’s Christian population, whose presence predates the founding of Islam by hundreds of years, is currently facing its greatest threat since the Islamic conquest of the seventh century. Already under attack from Al Qaeda and other Islamist groups – most notably in Iraq and Egypt – and severely oppressed by hardline regimes such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, the rise of the even more brutal Islamic State, or ISIS, has seen their situation deteriorate further.
As ISIS carried out what Amnesty International has termed a campaign of ethnic-cleansing of a “historic scale” through Syria and Iraq, Christians and other non-Sunni Muslims have been faced with a bleak choice between forced conversion or death, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee the advancing jihadi forces. Christians – known in Islamic sctriptures as a “People of the Book” – are offered a third option which others are not: if they remain they can live as second-class citizens known as dhimmis, and pay a special additional tax for non-Muslims known as jizya.
The conditions under which such dhimmis are forced to live were described in graphic terms by an ISIS-supporting Islamist in the UK earlier this year.
Many Middle Eastern Christians are in fact supportive of Israel – though they may not always state so openly for fear of reprisals – given that the Jewish state is the only country in the region where Christians are granted security and equal rights, and are not threatened with extinction. Recent Islamist advances in the Middle East have seen this trend increase, with more and more Israeli Christians signing up for the army and national service.
But others are decidedly more hostile, identifying with hardline anti-Zionist trends within the wider Arab community of which they are a part.
Shameful that Ted Cruz had to leave the room when it’s the hecklers that SHOULD HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE ROOM. Last time I thought of it this is still the United States of America. What’s wrong with us? Why are we allowing hecklers to disrupt an American’s speech; a speech about an ally. AMERICA WAKE UP!!! CHRISTIANS WAKE UP!!! eo
And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
Time, as we know it, is coming to an end. Soon our Messiah will return and set up His Kingdom and these “people” will be gone. It is truly sad to be a Believer and have the
world think that all “Christians” are like those hecklers. THAT IS NOT SO. I believe that
we need to see ourselves as True Believers if we are totally Scriptually based in the Word
of the One and Only God – the Creator of ALL THINGS; a God of love and mercy, Who would never condone such behavior on the part of someone who “calls” themself(ves) after the name of His Son, Who died that we might be Saved. Satan indeed is busy – he knows his time is short. TRUE BELIEVERS, GET ON YOUR KNEES – PRAY FOR ISRAEL – JERUSALEM – AND GOD’S
ELECT, THE JEWISH PEOPLE – AND YOURSELF(VES) THAT YOU MAY NOT BE DRAWN INTO
BELIEVING THE LIES OF SATAN AND his workers.
Make a stand for our LORD JESUS! he is coming back to judge the living and the dead! Watch and Pray! for your Adversary is prowling around to see who he may destroy! Stand up for Israel, and pray without ceasing.
Yes, I agree, the hecklers should have been removed…………no doubt. But I am so proud of Cruz…..he stood his ground……….he will be blessed…..the others will be cursed because GOD YEHOVAH said they would.
Someone mentioned Cruz would be blessed. I have no doubt he will be, if he hasn’t been already. From AIPAC. This was all political folks, though i know you don’t want to believe it. These politicians know how to garner pac money and how better to insure receiving AIPAC money then to make headlines about walking off stage while defending Israel. Cruz isn’t alone, they all do it….
Hard to believe . i have to see it to believe it
Juanita, you need to do some homework. AIPAC is NOT a PAC, (the name must have you confused); they do not give directly to or support individual candidates. (I am a Christian leader and activist heavily involved with them). It is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, they lobby for the US-Israel relationship and by law do not as an organization contribute to candidates.
And Ted Cruz is not in danger, not in need of funding this cycle. has focus on other races.
Fortunately, his focus is in the right place. I wonder if he knew this was possibly an antisemitic group in disguise. glad he brought them out in public.
Robin, no i didn’t mistake AIPAC with another group:
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the Congress and Executive Branch of the United States.
Describing itself as “America’s Pro-Israel Lobby”, AIPAC has more than 100,000 members, seventeen regional offices, and “a vast pool of donors.” It has been called “the most important organization affecting America’s relationship with Israel,” and one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States. The group does not raise funds for political candidates itself, but helps organize to channel money to candidates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Israel_Public_Affairs_Committee
From University of California News:
AIPAC has lots of financial clout.
Over the years it has raised and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its lobbying activities. Through the recent recession, AIPAC’s cash flow still reached almost $200 million, and in 2009, the group spent $9 million just on its annual three-day policy conference in Washington, D.C., according to IRS filings.
AIPAC raises additional hundreds of millions of dollars with the help of some of its wealthiest donors. Its AIPAC Tomorrow Campaign asks members to donate parts of their estates to the organization; so far it’s received $202 million worth of planned gifts, according to its Commitment Matters book.
The pro-Israel lobby also has an affiliate called the American Israel Education Foundation that pays to take congressmen on lavish trips to Israel, among other things. A one-week trip can cost up to $28,000 for an elected official and his or her spouse. The American Israel Education Foundation raises and spends about $25 million a year, according to IRS filings.
Although AIPAC cannot make direct campaign contributions under the law, political insiders say there are about 30 political action committees linked with it. That’s nearly all the pro-Israel PACs that exist. http://usc.news21.com/madeline-story/aipac-money-0.html
From Stanford EDU Group:
What is AIPAC? A nationwide network of local political action committees generally named after the region their donors come from, supplies much of the pro-Israel money in American politics. Additional funds also come from individuals who bundle contributions to candidates favored by the PACs. The donors’ unified goal is to build stronger U.S.-Israel relations and to support Israel in its ongoing negotiations (and armed conflicts) with its Arab neighbors. AIPAC, the country’s most powerful pro-Israel political group, does not give campaign contributions but does spend more than $1 million annually on lobbying. Note: Democrat Tom Daschle was the largest beneficiary of that group’s efforts back in the 1980s. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton and former California Governor Gray Davis were huge beneficiaries.”
As near as I can tell, AIPAC is a clearing house for PAC donations and nothing more”.
http://web.stanford.edu/group/wais/General/general_aipac.htm
God hears it all, sees it all, and knows it all. At the Great White Throne Judgment, the ungodly will finally get what they deserve. God Bless Ted Cruz for his courage to speak the truth, which is Jesus and His word. The spirit of anti-Christ is pervasive in America and the world. It was present in that room. It was cowardly that those who wanted to hear Cruz speak allowed the anti-Semite Jew haters to be allowed to stop free speech. Shame on every American in that room. As Bonheoffer once said, “Not to speak is to speak; to see evil and not call it evil is evil.” God saw and heard.
God Bless Ted Cruz for taking a stand for His people Israel the only free democratic state in that entire region. I am sure that Yahweh knows His own and will have mercy on the fools in that room who thought that they had to boo Ted Cruz in order to convince their Muslim overlords that could stand with them in order to return home. We must understand that many Christians in the Middle East live in a state where they are Dhimmi’s and cannot seem to work up the courage to stand up and state that Yeshua/Jesus was born a Jew as it says in their bible. He was of the lineage of David & His parents had to return to Bethlehem of Judea their ancestral home to register by order of Herod & Rome for tax purposes because Herod had destroyed all the records kept in the Temple. I am willing to bet that mixed in with the Middle Eastern Christians were muslims such as hezbollah etc. who were practicing Hudna (lying/pretending) in order to identify any who did not practice dhimmitude. Their hearts may have wanted to agree with Ted but they were too afraid to stand up for the truth. I can only say God forgive them.
It is very hard to believe a Christian Organization would do this or allow this to happen.
Have great respect for Ted Cruz. Sure he was surprised because who would have suspected.
The LORD allows exposure to the light…..anything that is evil and not of HIM. May their funding be seriously effected till they offer an apology to Mr Cruz and repent of their error.