Tuesday 5 January 1999

Israeli task force tries to avert millennial madness

USA TODAY, Jan 5, 1999

Matthew Kalman

JERUSALEM -- The month-long surveillance and arrest of members of a Denver-based Christian cult was the first public operation of an Israeli task force set up to deal with the expected influx of extreme Christian groups for the turn of the millennium.

Israeli officials fear that extreme Christian groups, like the Concerned Christians who were arrested Sunday, will perform acts that they believe will hasten the second coming of Jesus as the year 2000 approaches.

"Better late than never, the security and intelligence authorities have woken up and dealt with this group," said Rabbi David Rosen, director of the Jerusalem office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and an expert on Jewish-Christian relations. "Had there been good intelligence, they would never have got into the country in the first place."

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