US Evangelicals filming major Israel TV special [pg. 8]

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Dr. Michael D. Evans, founder of the Evangelical Israel Broadcasting Network, is in Israel taping a major television special that will be shown on several thousand Christian stations in the US as well as on major secular outlets. According to Evans, the film, to be called The Awakening, "will be the most-viewed pro-Israel special in American history. The goal is to mobilize tens of millions of Americans to stand up and speak up with moral clarity." Evans is in the country to document the connection between Iran and Hizbullah's attacks on Israel. He said on Fox television Tuesday morning that President George W. Bush was the first American president to allow Israel to fight a war against terrorism, "rather than feed terrorists and fuss with them." He also said terrorism was more of a problem for the US than for Israel. "We learned on 9/11 that America is the 'Great Satan,'" said Evans. He praised Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for changing the rules of engagement and defining terrorists with moral clarity. "He that defines the terms controls the debate," Evans said. "Up until now, Israel has tolerated terror and has allowed terrorists to benefit from terrorism by extracting political prisoners, raising money, recruiting more terrorists; the rewards exceeded the risks." According to Evans, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been neutralized. "The biggest card he could play against Israel was the Iranian-Hizbullah threat of 12,000 missiles, which he kept saying he would fire at Israel if Israel dared attack his nuclear reactors. That threat has been taken out," he said. Evans said the removal of this threat could do more to force Ahmadinejad to comply with the world's demands to stop enriching uranium than the combined efforts of the international community. He said there was no difference between the "rabid Islamic fundamentalists" who flew planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, and Hizbullah. He believes the same type of Islamist suicide bombers will attempt to cross US borders, "like a plague," hitting America as they have Israel. He also anticipates they will attempt to take American hostages in Beirut, as they did in the 1980s. "Israel has saved a great number of American lives by fighting its battle with Hizbullah," Evans said. "This will make it very difficult, if not impossible, for Hizbullah to take Iranian weapons across Syria into Iraq to attack American troops." Evans is founder of America's largest pro-Israel Christian coalition, the Jerusalem Prayer Team, which has more than 1,000 affiliated organizations, and 300 of America's most influential Evangelical leaders on its board, including Dr. Jerry Falwell, Dr. Pat Robertson, and Dr. John Hagee, president of Christians United with Israel.