As Rachel Maddow noted last night, the Republican National Committee is not eager to talk about the fact that 60 of its members are currently on an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel with Christian nationalist organizer David Lane that was funded by the American Family Association.
Lane and the AFA don’t only promote a Christian nationalist view of the U.S. government and push smears against those of other religions and fellow Christians who do not share their views, but the AFA has a troubling history of bigotry toward secular Jews in the U.S. and Israel.
So it should come as no surprise that Lane and the AFA invited Joel Rosenberg to speak to RNC members, considering that Rosenberg is an End Times alarmist who promotes the apocalyptic narrative that Jews in Israel must convert to Christianity to prepare for the second coming of Christ, and used to exult on his website that “Jews are turning to Jesus in record numbers, and they are getting excited about His Second Coming.”
Rosenberg tweeted on Wednesday that he had spoken with RNC members on the trip about his new book, “The Third Target”:
Enjoyed speaking tonight to all the RNC leaders who are visiting Israel, urging them to #StandWithIsrael & discussing #TheThirdTarget. @GOP
— Joel C. Rosenberg (@JoelCRosenberg) February 4, 2015
Rosenberg also tweeted photos of himself with some members of the RNC delegation, including former Puerto Rico Gov. Louis Fortuno and former Mitt Romney advisor Ron Kaufman:
Great meetings in Jerusalem, including w/fmr Puerto Rico Gov. @luisfortuno51 & fmr Romney senior advisor @Ron_Kaufman pic.twitter.com/ekQslEfkjP
— Joel C. Rosenberg (@JoelCRosenberg) February 4, 2015
Rosenberg specializes in linking natural disasters and other calamities to God’s displeasure with secularism and reproductive rights. He has said that Hurricane Sandy was part of God’s plan to “get our attention and call us to repent of our sins and turn back to faith in Jesus Christ and back to reading and obeying the Bible”; tied the Newtown school shooting to Jon Stewart and the so-called “War on Christmas”; and even claimed that God let the September 11, 2001, attacks to happen “to shake America, to get our attention, to wake us up.”
Rosenberg alsofrequently likens legal abortion in the United States to the atrocities of Nazi Germany, and says that it will bring about similar punishment from God:
Rosenberg is hardly a new friend of the Republican Party. Back in 2011, he led a delegation to Israel that included a number of GOP congressmen, including Rep. Louis Gohmert, who took the opportunity to give a copy of Rosenberg’s latest novel to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
