Response to a Muslim

I recently posted regarding my feelings about 'The religion of peace'. Normally Islamists don't bother responding to Atheists as they have bigger fish to fry and perhaps have realized the futility of doing so, but I did get a response today from a student in Jordan. You can read his comments in the previous post.

It is the basic form response from Muslims who don't wish to or cannot threaten you with death or kill you for insulting Islam, due to the geographical unavailability of your throat from their hands or other limits on their ability to respond. If you don't care to read his response I can encapsulate it for you: You are a fool. Allah is the ONE GOD. You don't know anything about Islam. Islam has a great history. I hope Allah shows you the ONE WAY. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Here is my reply:

Dear Mr Shiroqou,

Had your response been just a bit more predictable - like most 'cookie cutter' responses that unthinking Islamists write - I might have thought it was a joke.

First, I am not an Islamist. I will never be an Islamist. So Allah has jack shit to do with me. He is YOUR God and belief in him and his prophet will probably lead you to a very miserable life of semi-poverty, denial of your humanity and will no doubt have a negative effect on others you come into contact with. But Islam will never effect what I do, or say or how I behave. So you may want to get past the notion that your belief in Allah has any bearing over me.

Do you realize how automated and memorized your repsonse sounded? It is the same response you see over and over again from Islamists when they react to infidels. I have seen the videos of Muslim children in school, memorizing the Koran as they trance-like rock forward and backward. Are you really that brain-washed? Do your teachers in university make you memorize this little speach about Islam when you are confronted with an unbeliever who does not fear you? How different would your response be if we were face to face? How would you handle an Infidel, an Atheist no less, disputing the words of Allah in Jordan where you live?

You see, your words about Islam being so great and wonderful are just what we call Bull Shit around here Mr Shiroqou. We don't wear blinders you know. We see what Islam does in the countries that it controls. We see how women are treated, murdered by their families, hanged for supposed infidelity. We have eyes and can see the TRUTH of what an Islamic world would be like and we don't like it.

As far as the history of Islam goes, it is littered with blood, conquest and atrocities just as Christian history is. The difference is that Islam is STILL committing those atrocities and looks to continue to do so until it brings about your own destruction or takes over the world. BTW, the later option is NOT going to happen, Mr Shiroqou (one less Muslim youth wet dream).

So please save your tired and old B.S. about Islam for some poor convert to some other religion. I am an ATHEIST. My eyes have been opened to the foolishness of all religions. One would only need half of one eye opened to see the lunacy of your religion, Islam.

islam sucks
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Islam Sucks

There, I have said it.

Does the sound of a Godless American saying those words make you wince? Are you secretly cheering? Are you searching your mind for some reason to think otherwise? Hey, don't bother. Take my word for it. Islam today is a stinky mess of a religion.

Ah, that feels so good. How wonderful it is to live in a country where, at this point anyway, I am free to offer an opinion that may offend someone. America, for all that we get wrong there are some things that we sure get right. As this post is in response to the latest lunacy in the world of Islam, I will let all the other religions off the hook momentarily, but as an American I am free to insult them whenever the whim may strike me.

Before returning to my more general rant, I will take a moment to comment on the obvious absurdity and contradiction that is the latest yell-fest in the land of Islamic idiots. Basically, Muslims are burning churches and rioting violently because the suggestion has been made that at some point in history Islam was violent. Wow, way to make a point you morons!

While I find myself constantly having to battle to keep from being second-classed in this country because I am not religious, at least I don't have to worry about being killed or fire-bombed for my frequent negative comments about our dominant religion - Christianity. Hell, I will say it now that I would much rather live in a Christian dominated country than in any Islamic country, given a choice. What sane person would not?

It is beyond me how a religion and people can remain stuck in the middle ages while trillions of dollars flow into it from all corners of earth for the one useful commodity that they have - oil. The sooner that we all find a substitute for oil so as to cut off the money supply which has kept the backward nations of Islam even remotely relevant, the better. Sorry, but I have absolutely had it with the bunch of nuts in the desert who seem to suffer from an idea that anyone who insults their religion should be killed. Screw them!

I have also had it with all people, both secular and religious, who make excuses for the atrocities of Islam, which are numerous. Are people that afraid of these nuts? Do you want to live in a world where your leaders apply laws banning certain speech in order to appease the intolerant and violent Muslims? Do you want Islam to determine what the limits of free speech are? I know that I don't.

And that is why I have written this post. I will not ever silence myself from openly criticizing ANY religion. I am happy to that I live in a world in which most western countries have been secularized and liberalized enough to realize the value of open, honest and yes, insulting dialogues.

In closing this rant I would just like to reiterate that, in my opinion, Islam Sucks! Get over it Muslims.Look at this picture and tell me who you think has lost their mental bounds.

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Muslims: Don't Call Us Intolerant or We Will Kill You

Muslims protest cartoon portrayal of Mohhamed as intollerant by threatening death to anyone who doesn't agree with them.

This is just too rich. Once again, the 'tolerant' Muslim world is responding with threats of violence because someone has offended them by suggesting their religion is intolerant and prone to violence (which it is). This time it is that other religious guy, the pope, who insulted them.
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said "Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence,".

This reminds me of the protests against the Danish cartoons in which violent Muslims attacked embassies and died in reaction to the suggestion that Muslims are violent and unable to accept criticism. Hmmm?

Read the full story: Turkish Lawmaker Compare Pope To Hitler



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ABC 9/11 Docudrama's Right-Wing Roots

How many times do I have to say it? Religious people, conservative christians in particular, have no sense of the difference between TRUTH and BELIEF. They lie as easily as they breath. Read this interesting article on the background of the team behind the controversial anti-Clinton 'docu-drama'.



From "The Nation"
by by MAX BLUMENTHAL

On Friday, September 8, just forty-eight hours before ABC planned to air its so-called "docudrama," The Path to 9/11, Robert Iger, CEO of ABC's corporate parent, the Walt Disney Company, was presented with incontrovertible evidence outlining the involvement of that film's screenwriter and director in a concerted right-wing effort to blame former President Bill Clinton for allowing the 9/11 attacks to take place. Iger told a source close to ABC that he was "deeply troubled" by the information and claimed he had no previous knowledge of the institutional right-wing ties of The Path to 9/11's creators. He reportedly said that he has commenced an internal investigation to verify the role of the film's creators in deliberately advancing disinformation through ABC.

After stating that she was "looking into" my questions about the production of The Path to 9/11, ABC Vice President of Media Relations Hope Hartman declined to comment on this story.

All week, ABC has withstood withering criticism for The Path to 9/11's imaginative screenwriting that depicts Clinton and members of his administration either ignoring threats from Al Qaeda or botching operations that could have eliminated terror-master Osama bin Laden. Iger conceded in a September 5 press release that key scenes in The Path to 9/11 were indeed fabricated, calling the film "a dramatization, not a documentary." Behind the scenes, Iger reportedly made personal assurances to some of the film's most prominent critics that those scenes would be edited out. But even though some deceptive footage was cut from the original, much of its falsified version of events leading up to 9/11 remains.

Iger now bears ultimate responsibility for authorizing the product of a well-honed propaganda operation--a network of little-known right-wingers working from within Hollywood to counter its supposedly liberal bias. This is the network within the ABC network. Its godfather is far-right activist David Horowitz, who has worked for more than a decade to establish a right-wing presence in Hollywood and to discredit mainstream film and TV production. On this project, a secretive evangelical religious right group long associated with Horowitz, founded by The Path to 9/11's director, David Cunningham, that aims to "transform Hollywood" in line with its messianic vision, has taken the lead.

Before The Path to 9/11 entered the production stage, Disney/ABC signed David Cunningham as the film's director. Cunningham is no ordinary Hollywood journeyman. He is in fact the son of Loren Cunningham, founder of the right-wing evangelical group Youth With A Mission (YWAM). According to Sara Diamond's book Spiritual Warfare, during the 1980's YWAM "sought to gain influence within the Republican party" while assisting authoritarian governments in South Africa and Central America. Cunningham, Diamond noted, was a follower of Christian Reconstructionism, an extreme current of evangelical theology that advocates using stealth political methods to put the United States under the control of Biblical law and jettison the Constitution. Cunningham instilled his radical ideology in young missionaries by sending them to "Discipleship Training School." A former student of Cunningham's school claimed "similarities between cult mind controlling techniques and the [Discipleship Training School] program instituted by YWAM."

When the young Cunningham entered his father's ministry, he helped found an auxiliary group called The Film Institute (TFI). According to its mission statement, TFI is "dedicated to a Godly transformation and revolution TO and THROUGH the Film and Television industry." Cunningham has placed over a dozen interns from Youth With A Mission's Discipleship Training School in film industry jobs "so that they can begin to impact and transform Hollywood from the inside out," according to a YWAM report.

Last June, Cunningham's TFI announced it was producing its first film, mysteriously titled Untitled History Project. "TFI's first project is a doozy," a newsletter to YWAM members read. "Simply being referred to as: The Untitled History Project, it is already being called the television event of the decade and not one second has been put to film yet. Talk about great expectations!" (A web edition of the newsletter was mysteriously deleted last week after its publication by the blogger Digby, but has been cached on Google at the link above).

The following month, on July 28, the New York Post reported that ABC was filming a mini-series "under a shroud of secrecy" about the 9/11 attacks. "At the moment, ABC officials are calling the miniseries 'Untitled Commission Report' and producers refer to it as the 'Untitled History Project,'" the Post noted.

Early on, Cunningham had recruited a young Iranian-American screenwriter named Cyrus Nowrasteh to write the script of his secretive Untitled film. Not only is Nowrasteh an outspoken conservative, he is also a fervent member of the emerging network of right-wing people burrowing into the film industry with ulterior sectarian political and religious agendas, like Cunningham.

Nowrasteh's conservatism was on display when he appeared as a featured speaker at the Liberty Film Festival (LFF), an annual event founded in 2004 to premier and promote conservative-themed films supposedly too "politically incorrect" to gain acceptance at mainstream film festivals. This June, while The Path to 9/11 was being filmed, LFF founders Govindini Murty and Jason Apuzzo--both friends of Nowrasteh-- announced they were "partnering" with Horowitz. Indeed, the 2006 LFF is listed as "A Program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center."

Since the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1992, Horowitz has labored to create a network of politically active conservatives in Hollywood. His Hollywood nest centers around his Wednesday Morning Club, a weekly meet-and-greet session for Left Coast conservatives that has been graced with speeches by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens. The group's headquarters are at the offices of Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a "think tank" bankrolled for years with millions by right-wing sugar daddies like billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. (Scaife financed the Arkansas Project, a $2.3 million dirty tricks operation that included paying sources for negative stories about Bill Clinton that turned out to be false.)

In the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, Horowitz led the right's campaign to pin the blame for attacks on Clinton. On February 19, 2002, Horowitz's organization mailed 1,500 lengthy pamphlets to major media outlets which claimed to expose how "the left" in general and Clinton in particular had "undermined America's security," thus causing 9/11. Two years later, Horowitz penned a lengthy manifesto for his FrontPageMag blaming Clinton once again for having "accepted defeat" in the fight against Al Qaeda. Horowitz singled out Clinton's National Security Council Director, Samuel "Sandy" Berger, as especially culpable for allowing the terror threat to fester, casting him as "a veteran of the Sixties 'anti-war' movement" who "abetted the Communist victories in Vietnam and Cambodia."

This year, Horowitz's Hollywood hothouse finally spawned his most potent anti-Clinton propaganda device. With the LFF under Horowitz's control, his political machine began drumming up support for Cunningham and Nowrasteh's Untitled project, which finally was revealed last August as The Path to 9/11.

Like Iger, Horowitz has pleaded ignorance about the sectarian agenda of the film's creators. Responding to an article I wrote for the Huffington Post exposing Horowitz's involvement in The Path to 9/11 (on which this article is adapted), he claimed in a blog post, "In fact, I never heard of David Cunningham or his group before reading about them in Max's hilarious column."

However, Horowitz's public relations blitz on behalf of the film began at least a month ago with an August 16 interview with Nowrasteh on his FrontPageMag webzine In the interview, Nowrasteh described how The Path to 9/11 was filmed "under the very able direction of David L. Cunningham." (Doesn't Horowitz read his own magazine?)

Nowrasteh also foreshadowed the film's assault on Clinton's record on fighting terror. "The 9/11 report details the Clinton's administration's response--or lack of response--to Al Qaida and how this emboldened Bin Laden to keep attacking American interests," Nowrasteh told FrontPageMag's Jamie Glazov. "There simply was no response. Nothing."

A week later, ABC hosted LFF co-founder Murty and several other conservative operatives at an advance screening of The Path to 9/11. (While ABC provided 900 DVDs of the film to conservatives, Clinton Administration officials and reviewers from mainstream outlets were denied them.) Murty returned with a glowing review published by FrontPageMag that emphasized the film's partisan nature. "The Path to 9/11 is one of the best, most intelligent, most pro-American miniseries I've ever seen on TV, and conservatives should support it and promote it as vigorously as possible," Murty wrote. As a result of the special access granted by ABC, Murty's article was the first published review of The Path to 9/11, preceding those by the New York Times and Los Angeles Times by more than a week.

Murty followed her review with a blast e-mail to conservative websites such as Liberty Post and Free Republic on September 1 urging their readers to throw their weight behind ABC's mini-series. "Please do everything you can to spread the word about this excellent miniseries," Murty wrote, "so that The Path to 9/11 gets the highest ratings possible when it airs on September 10 & 11! If this show gets huge ratings, then ABC will be more likely to produce pro-American movies and TV shows in the future!"

Murty's efforts were supported by Appuzo, who handles LFF's heavily-trafficked blog, Libertas. Appuzo was instrumental in marketing The Path to 9/11 to conservatives, writing in a blog post on September 2, "Make no mistake about what this film does, among other things: it places the question of the Clinton Administration's culpability for the 9/11 attacks front and center.... Bravo to Cyrus Nowrasteh and David Cunningham for creating this gritty, stylish and gripping piece of entertainment."

When a group of leading Senate Democrats sent a letter to Iger urging him to cancel The Path to 9/11 because of its glaring factual errors and distortions, Apuzzo launched a retaliatory campaign to paint the Democrats as foes of free speech. "Here at LIBERTAS we urge the public to make noise over this, and to demand that Democrats back down," he wrote on September 7. "What is at stake is nothing short of the 1st Amendment."

At FrontPageMag, Horowitz singled out Nowrasteh as the victim of an unconstitutional crime. "The attacks by former president Bill Clinton, former Clinton Administration officials and Democratic US senators on Cyrus Nowrasteh's ABC mini-series The Path to 9/11 "are easily the gravest and most brazen and damaging governmental attacks on the civil liberties of ordinary Americans since 9/11," Horowitz declared. The next day, Horowitz reposted his 2004 manifesto holding Clinton responsible for 9/11, explaining that, "With tonight's premiere of the ABC-TV movie The Path to 9/11, the truth [sic] impact of the Left's policies in bringing about the nation's worst terrorist attack is finally coming to light."

Although Iger and ABC trimmed as much as thirty minutes of deceptive footage from Sunday's episode of The Path to 9/11, it appeared nonetheless as a mostly faithful adaptation of Horowitz's anti-Clinton essay. Indeed, The Path to 9/11 still contained its most egregiously false scene, in which Sandy Berger refuses to authorize a CIA officer's request to capture bin Laden, who is completely surrounded by rival Northern Alliance soldiers. After the halted (and totally fictional) operation, "Kirk," the (completely imaginary) CIA op played by Donny Wahlberg of New Kids on the Block fame, stands on a hilltop beside the Northern Alliance's quixotic warlord, Ahmed Shah Massoud.

"Are there any men left in Washington?" the script has a frustrated Massoud asking "Kirk." "Or just cowards?"

"Cowards?" The question is quietly being raised in the corridors of ABC-TV's headquarters in Burbank, California. Besieged in his lush office, Iger privately agonizes that he was complacent about an attack on his network's reputation by a band of political terrorists. But when faced with his own version of the Taliban, he appeased them.

Christianity,atheism,ABC,911,9-11,David Horowitz,David Cunningham

A Good Question

Ky. plane crash survivor asks 'Why?'

By JEFFREY McMURRAY, Associated Press Writer

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The sole survivor of a plane crash that killed 49 people near the Lexington airport last week told family members from his hospital bed, "Why did God do this to me?" but he hasn't mentioned the crash, a close family friend said Wednesday.

James Polehinke, who was the flight's co-pilot, can move only his head, and tears often well up in his eyes, said Antonio Cruz, Polehinke's mother's boyfriend. He said the 44-year-old has been in and out of consciousness.

Polehinke hasn't mentioned the crash and doctors have encouraged family members not to ask him about it, Cruz told The Associated Press.

According to federal investigators, the flight's captain, Jeffrey Clay, taxied Comair Flight 5191 onto the wrong runway before Polehinke took over the regional jet and attempted to get it airborne from the too-short runway at Lexington's Blue Grass Airport.

The plane crashed and caught fire in a nearby field. Polehinke was pulled to safety from the broken cockpit, but everyone else aboard the plane died in the crash and fire.

Polehinke is now off a ventilator but could be hospitalized for several more weeks with facial and spine fractures, a broken leg, foot and hand, three broken ribs, a broken breastbone and a collapsed lung.

"Jimmy's doctors have told us that he is more wakeful, but still not completely lucid for any sustained period of time," Polehinke's wife, Ida Askew, said in a statement released by the University of Kentucky, where her husband is hospitalized.

Polehinke has asked about various family members and his dogs, Cruz said, and has questioned his relationship with God.

One of the first full sentences he said after regaining consciousness was, "Why did God do this to me?" Cruz said.

Cruz said Polehinke's mother, Honey Jackson, told him: "It was not God. It was just an accident."

Investigators are looking into airport construction and staffing at the control tower, among other things, as a possible contributing factors to the Aug. 27 crash. The lone tower operator had turned to do administrative work as the plane turned onto the wrong runway and tried to take off, officials said. According to FAA guidelines, two control tower operators should have been working at the time.

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Rape Law Rankles Some Pakistan Lawmakers

Another example of the treatment of women under the 'Religion of Peace'.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Lawmakers from a coalition of six Islamic groups threatened on Tuesday to vacate their parliamentary seats if Pakistan's government changes a rape law criticized by human rights activists.

A walkout by the 68 lawmakers could destabilize the government of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, criticized by Islamic parties since his ruling party last month presented a bill to amend the law in a bid to protect women's rights.

Pakistan's National Assembly has 344 members. A walkout could force by-elections.

Under the current law, approved by a former military dictator in 1979, prosecuting a rape case requires testimony from four witnesses, making punishment almost impossible because such attacks are rarely public.

A woman who claims she was raped but fails to prove her case can be convicted of adultery, punishable by death.

Maulana Fazalur Rahman, a leader of the Islamic coalition, said Tuesday that lawmakers in his group would vacate their seats in the National Assembly if the government tries to get the assembly's approval to change the law.

"We will render every sacrifice for the protection of the Shariah (traditional Islamic) laws," he said at a news conference.

However, the ruling Pakistan Muslim Party — which has a majority in the assembly — has praised Musharraf for taking steps to amend the law and end the four-witness requirement.

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Angel Kisses

This story out of one of the 'family values' red states is extremely disturbing but not surprising. What should one expect from groups of adults who deny their own natural sexuality because of the writings of some nuts in the iron age? Thank goodness that the Catholics don't have this problem!


Chold Molestation Case Rocks The Ozarks

By MARCUS KABEL, Associated Press Writer

WASHBURN, Mo. - Turning their backs on the isolated religious commune in the rugged Ozarks where many had grown up, a group of members fled with only the clothes on their back, trudging several miles down a gravel road to the nearest phone to call friends or family for help.

A woman in the group soon told a sheriff's deputy horrific stories of how the compound's leaders had molested girls as part of religious ceremonies during which they were told their bodies were being prepared for "service to God."

That was the beginning of a child sex scandal that has ensnared five leaders from two affiliated churches and cast a spotlight on a remote corner of the Ozarks that has long been home to spiritual communes, sheltered by deep oak woods, steep hills and a culture in which people keep to themselves.

"It's a shock, a sickening kind of shock. It's not the kind of thing you want to wake up in the morning and hear about," said Linda Hopping, who lives a few miles from one of the backwoods churches but said she had never heard of it before now.

The five defendants are accused of molesting five girls in all. More alleged victims have come forward since charges were filed in mid-August, and prosecutors said more people will probably be charged.

The defendants have pleaded not guilty. Their lawyers refused to comment.

One of those arrested, pastor George Otis Johnston, 63, called it "angel kisses" when he touched one girl sexually before and after church services, the girl told investigators. Johnston also allegedly told the girl that "he was ordained by God to fulfill her needs as a woman." The abuse against that girl, prosecutors say, started when she was 8 and lasted until she was 16.

The youngest of the alleged victims was 4 when the abuse started, according to court papers. The molestation occurred as far back as the late 1970s and as recently as last April, authorities said.

Johnston is charged with sodomy and child molestation. Also charged are Johnson's nephew, the Rev. Raymond Lambert, 51; Lambert's wife, Patty Lambert, 49; and her brothers Paul Epling, 53, and Tom Epling, 51.

Johnston's Grandview Valley Baptist Church North, whose members live on a 10-acre leased property in Granby, is an offshoot of the older and larger community led by Lambert, the Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church.

Much remains unknown about the two church communities, about 40 miles apart in Missouri's far southwestern corner.

"They keep up there to themselves," said farmer Hubert Maring, 80, who lives in a small white house across from Grand Valley Independent.

Sheriff's investigators say the members pooled their paychecks and property. Some worked on the farm, raising livestock or breeding puppies for sale, while others worked outside the communes.

The Grand Valley compound is behind a gate on a 100-acre farm, where it was founded in the 1970s. As many as 100 people lived there as recently as May, investigators say. The number is now about 25.

From the road, a rambling yellow house is visible on the hilltop, but the rest of the acreage is hidden behind a ridge and trees. Ten mailboxes stand at the gate, most of them with the last names Epling or Lambert. One was labeled "Grand Valley Christian Academy," which investigators said was where children from the group were homeschooled.

The smaller community in Granby houses about 35 to 45 people in around 10 trailer homes.

Experts said communal-style religious groups are not uncommon in the Ozarks, with at least half a dozen now in the area, some of them fundamentalist Christian, Hindu or New Age.

"You don't find this in New York City, but you do find it in rural areas — tight communities, very close communities. You do not tell outsiders what's going on," said Gary Brock, professor of sociology at Missouri State University in Springfield.

"When you are given a message by a religious leader, that sacred component makes the message that much more severe. You should not go against that wish because it's God's wish."

The Grand Valley case broke in May when eight people walked away from the compound and trudged to the nearest hamlet. One of them, a man in his 30s, got a court order of protection a few days later to go back with a sheriff's deputy and retrieve his paralyzed wife.

It was on the drive back out to the compound that a 27-year-old woman who had also fled rode with sheriff's Deputy Mike LeSueur and described abuses at compound.

Members of the commune say they left after some kind of dispute within the church, possibly over child abuse, LeSueur said.

"They decided to do the only thing they could. Since they had no money of their own and no physical property of their own, because it all belongs to the commune, they left," the deputy said. "They just walked out on foot."

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Something We Need To See More Of

Moderate? religionists criticizing their less moderate counterparts.

Holy Land churches attack Christian Zionism
By Matthew Tostevin

Thu Aug 31, 1:53 PM ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters)

The Vatican's envoy in the Holy Land and bishops from three other churches have launched a rare joint attack on the Christian Zionist movement, accusing it of promoting "racial exclusivity and perpetual war."

Israel Christian Zionists form a growing part of the pro Israel lobby in the United States, the Jewish state's main ally. They believe the return of Jews to the Holy Land and establishment of Israel are proof of God's promises to biblical patriarchs.

Churches in the Middle East often appear closer to the Palestinians, whose Christian minority makes up a substantial portion of their clergy in the region.

The "Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism" was signed by Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, a Palestinian, and by bishops of the Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran and Syrian Orthodox Churches in Jerusalem.

Many Christian Zionists are evangelical Protestants, and the declaration is a sign of a growing struggle between the groups.

"The Christian Zionist programme provides a world view where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism," said the declaration, accusing Christian Zionists of hurting hopes for Middle East peace.

"We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that facilitate and support these policies as they advance racial exclusivity and perpetual war," the declaration added.

The three main Christian Zionist groups in Jerusalem said in a statement that they were concerned at the declaration's "inflammatory language" and that it was far from the truth.

Christian Zionists stress Christianity's Jewish roots. Some back the movement to settle the occupied West Bank, the cradle of Jewish civilization, which Palestinians want as part of an independent state.

INFLAMMATORY

"We pray for peace. But we note with sadness that the present Palestinian government is totally dedicated to the destruction of Israel," the Christian Zionist groups said in their statement, referring to the governing Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

The prospect of Middle East peace talks has looked even more unlikely since Hamas's election victory in January. The group is formally dedicated to destroying Israel.

"The problem in the region is not as simple as the Jerusalem Declaration makes out," the Christian Zionists' statement said.

Some Christian Zionists believe that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land will bring about the end of the world and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Some also believe Jews themselves will have to become Christians or perish.

The Christian Zionist groups in Jerusalem said they had no "thirst for Armageddon" and do not base their theological position on "end time prophecy." They called for dialogue with the clerics behind the declaration that condemned them.

Christian Zionism is strongest in the United States, where support is much higher than in Europe or other parts of the world for Israel in its conflicts with the Palestinians and in its recent war with Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

James Rudin, senior advisor on inter-religious affairs for the American Jewish Committee in New York, said there are "millions and millions of American Christians" who support Israel but who do not consider themselves Zionists.

He said they represent a core of support far larger than those who base their backing of Israel on the Bible.

(Additional reporting by Tom Heneghan in Paris and Mike Conlon in Chicago)