October 12, 1999
Israel refuses to let 26 Irish and Romanian tourists enter the country at the port of Haifa for being members of an extreme Christian cult. The tourists claim rough treatment by the police, who say they used reasonable force when the tourists wouldn’t return to their ship.
As the year 2000 approached, Israel feared becoming the target of doomsday groups trying to bring about the return of Jesus. In January 1999, Israel deported 14 members of a Denver-based doomsday cult called the Concerned Christians, who were suspected of planning violence at Al-Aqsa Mosque and other holy sites in Jerusalem.
Now labeled a terrorist group, Concerned Christians’ mission includes converting all Jews to Christianity. Israel set up a task force after the Concerned Christians’ deportation to deal with such cultist threats at the turn of the millennium. The FBI supported the effort, called Operation Walk on Water.