During the J Street conference, I criticized Elie Wiesel for delivering a speech to the congregation of the homophobic, Holocaust revisionist Pastor John Hagee, whose conspiratorial prophecies were so extreme John McCain withdrew the preacher’s endorsement. Now, just over three months later, we know why Wiesel hailed Hagee as his "dear pastor."
For delivering a single speech to Hagee’s congregation, Wiesel received a check for $500,000 toward his foundation, according to Marita Styrsky, the wife of Christians United for Israel Eastern Regional Director Victor Styrsky (Christians United is Hagee’s lobbying arm). So Wiesel got his money and Hagee got a photo with a Nobel Prize-winning Holocaust survivor. Everybody went home happy.
Since praising Hagee, Wiesel has gone on to condemn the Goldstone Report as "a crime against the Jewish people." Wiesel’s remarkable statementprompted Richard Silverstein to ask, "What was the last event in world history you can recall being a “crime against the Jewish people?” The answer is pretty obvious.
