“…We’re in a religious war…” – Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (2023)
“...many people of faith view the very existence of Israel as evidence of divine providence…” – Senator Todd Young (R-IN) (2023)
“God’s word is very clear, if we stand with Israel, god will bless us” – Representative Rick Allen (R-GA) (2023)
The power dynamics within what is broadly called the ‘Arab World’ are clear: a population of some 450 million and GDP of $ 2.5 trillion: Israel’s immediate neighbours are Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, which is one of the richest, most important and powerful nations in the world, let alone in the Arab peninsula. The addition of the Islamic Republic of Iran means the Palestinian cause should in theory have substantial military, financial, and diplomatic support, that it is able to leverage to at least prevent the ongoing carnage in Gaza.
Israel’s military capacity and a GDP of $ 500 billion (impressive for a population of nine million) is only part of the reason for its longstanding belligerence and aggression in the region. Israel’s real power is derived from having friends in high places, in more ways than one, in the Anglosphere, Europe, and much further beyond.
As the quotes above suggest, American congressional support for the State of Israel is so impassioned and unconditional on the basis of religious beliefs and not as a consequence of politics or even strategic imperatives of their own nation, the USA. The quotes are not from what you might refer to as ‘minor-league’ players from America’s political backwaters. Senator Lindsey Graham is one of America’s longest-serving and most senior politicians; currently a ranking member (formerly Chairman) of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
This article will present a brief history of the religious sources of fervent support for the State of Israel within the US body-politic, showing why this is the most enduring ‘special relationship’ for the US. Political support for Israel in America is driven by politicians and constituencies for whom the conflict holds deep religious significance.
The Lord and the Lobby
Readers from the Iraq War ‘2’ era will recall that it was the US and the United Kingdom which shared the famed ‘special relationship’. Prof. John Mearsheimer is one of the world’s foremost scholars of international politics; during a recent interview he noted that the “United States has a special relationship with Israel that has no parallel in modern history…”
Mearsheimer should know since he published a book called ‘The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy’ in 2007, co-written with another preeminent scholar of international politics and history, Stephen Walt. ‘The Israel Lobby’ is a thesis that underlines the role of networks of organisations, donors, and special interests that converge upon the US political system, all well within their legal rights, to influence American policy, and specifically foreign policy, towards the State of Israel.
Far from needing to utilise conspiratorial language or innuendo, without resorting to increasingly common tropes about secret cabals, Walt and Mearsheimer present some basic facts about what they call a “loose coalition of individuals and organisations who actively seek to steer US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction… many of the key organisations in the lobby, such as the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organisations [comprising 50 national Jewish organisations] are run by hardliners, who generally support the Likud Party’s expansionist policies, including its hostility to the Oslo peace process…”
You will note that the authors called their book the “Israel Lobby” and not the “Jewish Lobby”; this is because the “lobby also includes prominent Christian evangelicals like Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, and Pat Robertson… Tim DeLay; former majority leaders in the House of Representatives all of whom believe Israel’s rebirth is the fulfilment of biblical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda; to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary to God’s will. Neoconservative gentiles such as John Bolton, former Editor of the Wall Street Journal Robert Bartley, former Secretary of Education William Bennett, former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and influential columnist George Will are also steadfast supporters.”
As the quotations from Graham, Young, and Allen show, the religious dimension is undeniably central to the conflict; reactions from across the spectrum betray the fact that it is and always has been driven by the religious significance of the region. Notions of divine promises and an acceptance of religious doctrine adds a particular tone of fervency to the intensity of the conflict and partly explains its intractability.
Israel is regularly referred to as the “Holy Land” due to its significance to all three major Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This article will limit itself to the Judeo-Christian dimension of the conflict and specifically its impact on American support for Israel.
A divine land registry
A 2008 book called ‘Evangelicals and Israel – The Story of American Christian Zionism’ by Professor Stephen Spector notes the various promises or prophecies involving God and the Biblical ‘Land of Israel’. The history of linkage of this land to the Jewish people is derived from various parts or books of the Torah (the Jewish Bible). The Book of Genesis establishes the covenant between God and Abraham, whereby the ‘Holy Land’ is promised to Abraham’s offspring. Spector warns of the “ulterior motive” for backing Israel, “the belief that the Jews return to their Biblical home will lead to mass conversion or death and will hasten the rapture and the second coming”.
The ‘Book of Exodus’ establishes the narrative of the Israelites as the descendants of Jacob, who was himself later renamed Israel: the same Jacob that leaves to Egypt with his 12 sons: the story of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Scholars widely agree that this Biblical narrative forms the national myth that is foundational to Jewish claims to the land that was called Israel: a divine inheritance from God, which to be clear, has no basis under international law.
The books of the Torah including Genesis and Exodus but also Deuteronomy establish the ‘God-given’ rights of the Jewish nation to the geographical area we call the Southern Levant. All the major Abrahamic religions espouse prophetic beliefs related to ‘eschatology’: the religious expectation that the present human age will cease to exist; the ‘end times’ or Armageddon.
Jewish religious traditions generally hold that the reestablishment of the ‘Land of Israel’ is a necessary condition for the redemption of the Jewish people, a reference to the Book of Isaiah. As Susan Michael writes for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ): “Isaiah 11:11 indicates there would be a day when God would raise his hand ‘a second time’ to gather the children of Israel to their homeland. The first return was predicted by the prophet Jeremiah to take place after Israel had been in captivity for 70 years (Jeremiah 29:10), and according to Ezra 1:1 happened precisely as foretold. After 500 years… the Jewish people were once again dispersed under the Roman Empire in AD 70. After 2,000 years, they have now returned and reestablished sovereignty…”
Other themes include the rebuilding of the Third Temple in Jerusalem and the universal recognition of God, not just by the global Jewry but by all of mankind. To quote the Messianic Bible: “I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them… I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them.” (Amos 9:14–15).
Another important aspect is that this Third Temple is meant to be constructed near the site of the Temple Mount which houses the Al Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islamic tradition.
The first Zionists
Evangelical Christians utilise both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible and as such their belief systems and traditions draw from the Torah, which comprises the first five books of the Bible. As mentioned before, American Evangelicals are a major source of support for the State of Israel and constitute a powerful section of Mearsheimer’s “Lobby”; there are approximately 90 to 100 million Evangelical Christians in the United States.
The most passionate advocates for the State of Israel within the United States that make up a core base of the Republican Party are the Evangelicals and the most fervent sect within are known as Dispensationalists; a sect that adopts literal interpretations of the Bible. Dispensationalists adopt the narratives as signified by specific biblical ages (dispensations) that partition history based on biblical revelation and foundational to this is the belief in the future restoration of the Land of Israel as a necessary condition for the rapture and second coming.
In many ways, through dispensationalist doctrine, there is an argument to be made that, as an organised political movement, Christian Zionism predated Theodore Herzl’s version. Spector notes that “…dispensationalism was conceived and disseminated in the mid-19th century by John Nelson Darby, a one-time Anglican priest in the Church of Ireland…” who taught that the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland would ensure the fulfilment of prophecy.
Adherence to such types of Evangelical Christianity necessitates the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Land (State) of Israel as a distinctly Jewish nation. Thus, as Spector writes: “Darby’s focus on the Jews’ return to Palestine, their centrality in the unfolding of divine history and their expected final acceptance of the messiah, has had a profound impact on generations of devout Protestants, particularly in the United States. It spread through Bible conferences, Bible institutes, a network of publications, and especially the Scofield Reference Bible of 1909…” Thus, this Jewish State, and specifically its Jewish character, is central to Evangelical eschatology as Spector notes: “…without that, there would be no Antichrist, no tribulation, no battle of Armageddon, and no Second Coming…”
The Gospel of Matthew, part of the New Testament, notes the very specific fate of non-believers: “...not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast our demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’ (7:21-23)”. The Gospel of Matthew includes the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ by Jesus of Nazareth and propagates the concept of eternal damnation or ‘judgement’ of non-believers: “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:46).
The Book of Revelation makes specific reference to the future plight of the Jewish people in Evangelical Christian belief: “Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called out with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, saying, ‘Do not harm the Earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.’ And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel.” (Revelation 7:1-8).
This is essentially, the Biblical God of Evangelical Christianity promising to save those that are loyal to his Church as well as 144,000 Jews; descendants of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, that were faithful to God. The explicit call to salvation of a very specific and rather limited number of the total Jewish population might also suggest the damnation of the remaining Jewry, which seems to be a rather antisemitic narrative.
An immoral majority
Dispensationalist doctrine was at the root of the emergence of political engagement and activism among the Evangelical Christian ‘Right’ in the United States. The idea that Israel is central to the narratives of God’s will and plan for humanity was critical to the Israel Lobby.
By the late 1970s, American Evangelist preacher Jerry Falwell had begun to co-opt the religious right in the United States to further strengthen Christian support for the Republican Party. A base for the Reagan revolution, Falwell was famed for his insistence that the United States must support Israel and even made numerous trips to the ‘Holy Land,’ sponsored by the Government of Israel. His ‘Moral Majority’ organisation advocated for American Foreign Policy positions that still persist to this day; the unconditional protection of and support for the State of Israel, inclusive of military aid and despite potentially contradictory strategic imperatives. This Evangelical rally around the Reagan candidacy and presidency was the perfect foil for a Christian, California Conservative, espousing traditional values.
There have also been reports that President Reagan’s belief in Armageddon was a major determinant of American foreign policy in the middle east. Falwell’s Moral Majority opposed Jimmy Carter’s support for a Palestinian State while simultaneously lobbying for increased support and military aid to Israel having endorsed the Reagan campaign in 1980.
John Herbert writes in the New York Times (NYT) in October 1984 that Reagan is quoted as having regularly and transparently stated his belief in some form of literal Armageddon based on the Holy Bible: “Ronald Reagan said it as Governor and as President, in his home in the White House, over lunch, over dinner, in the car and over the phone, to religious leaders and lobbyists, to his staff, a Senator, and even to People magazine. On at least 11 occasions Ronald Reagan has suggested that the end of the world is coming, and it may be coming soon.” The NYT states that Mr. Reagan’s references to Armageddon compelled “100 mainstream Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish leaders to sign a statement of concern. The statement says that the Armageddon theology is a false reading of the Bible and that belief in it diminishes concern about the possibility of nuclear war.”
Thus, when we notice the passion and desperation on all sides of this conflict, we have to be honest that such fervency is not generated solely by nationalistic sentiment or geopolitical realities but by the various parties of God; people and institutions that are not satisfied with simply having knowledge of an impending Armageddon but seem ‘hell-bent’ on accelerating it arrival.
(The writer has 15 years of experience in the financial and corporate sectors after completing a Degree in Accounting and Finance at the University of Kent [UK] while also completing a Masters in International Relations from the University of Colombo. He is a media resource-person, presenter, political commentator, and researcher. He also presents an interview show that is available on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, and is a member of the Working Committee of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya [SJB]. He can be contacted via email: kusumw@gmail.com and Twitter: @kusumw)