“President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark His return to Earth.” This is how, amid the escalating war against Iran, Christian Zionists are indoctrinating deployed US troops. They are presenting the attack on Iran as a holy war and a means of bringing about the Second coming of Christ. While Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has not explicitly endorsed this kind of propaganda, his views—and those of many other members of the Trump administration—broadly align with them. This manifests a strong influence of Christian Zionists.
The idea of gathering the world’s Jews in their mythical homeland was advanced by evangelical Christians centuries before it was taken up by secular Jews at the end of the 19th century. However, religious Jews and the most distinguished Jewish scholars long opposed the idea of a Jewish state, especially one in the Holy Land —migration to which, according to Jewish tradition, should await the arrival of the Messiah.
Indeed, Zionism, to be more precise, “Zionism avant la lettre,” was not invented by Jews but by evangelical Protestants, starting in the 16th century. They pursued two aims: to bring Christ back to this world and to convert Jews to Christianity. This deep affinity with evangelical Protestant beliefs helps explain the massive support the State of Israel enjoys today in the United States and other countries, where evangelical Protestants number in the hundreds of millions and form an impressive pro-Israel force. Christian Zionists view the State of Israel through apocalyptic lenses, viewing it as a tool to provoke Armageddon and hasten the End of Days.
Zionism, initially a socialist-oriented secular project of radical transformation, has undergone sacralization, becoming a focal point of evangelical Christian Zionists as well as of followers of National Judaism (dati-leumi). Both see the hand of God in the Zionist enterprise. Thousands of teenagers have been brought up in the spirit of National Judaism with the conviction that the Land of Israel was the primary value within Judaism, which ‘comes before anything else’.
Similarities between Zionism and Protestantism are rooted in literalism, i.e., non-figurative and non-traditional interpretations of the Bible. According to the renowned Israeli historian Anita Shapira, “there is a parallel between Protestantism’s approach to sacred texts and the Jewish [Zionists’] attitude to biblical literalism.” A detailed historical account of this movement points to the earliest book to propose a Restoration of the Jews to Palestine published by an Anglican priest in 1585. It posited the centrality of creating a Jewish state as a means of fulfilling Christian prophecies.
Despite the total lack of interest on the part of Jews, Protestant belief in the Restoration of the Jews to the Promised Land became firmly implanted in the English-speaking lands on both sides of the Atlantic. Colonial interests reinforced biblical sensitivities. The idea of a Jewish state under British protectorate began circulating in Europe well before this idea attracted any significant number of Jews.
Important geopolitical considerations reinforced the purely religious zeal. Britain wanted West Asia to be a secure passage to India, and the coveted area was dubbed the Near East. The first British Consulate was inaugurated in Jerusalem in 1838. Two years later, the influential politician Lord Shaftesbury (1801-1885) published a memorandum to the Protestant monarchs of Europe, which transformed a theological project into a political one. As President of the London Jews’ Society, he strongly promoted the conversion of Jews to Christianity as a necessary step for their return to Palestine (Jewish restoration). Queen Victoria was personally approached with a plan to colonise the Holy Land with Jews while deporting the locals to create living space for Jewish settlers. This idea received additional impetus with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.
It was William Hechler, the Anglican chaplain of the British Embassy in Vienna in the late 19th century, who greatly inspired Theodor Herzl, future founder of Zionism, to embark on the ingathering of Jews in Palestine. Hechler’s Christian influence played a significant role in the Zionist awakening of the irreligious Herzl. Herzl initially wanted to convert the Jews of Vienna to Catholicism and only later embraced the ingathering of the Jews, firmly guided by Hechler, who urged him not to abandon his mission.
Pleas for the Restoration of the Jews were often accompanied with expressions of anti-Jewish sentiments. In the 19th century, when antisemitism emerged as a popular movement, its partisans could be found among the most enthusiastic supporters of the Zionist project. Herzl, who finally spread the gospel of Restoration to the Jews, considered antisemites his movement’s best “friends and allies.” Significantly, Lord Balfour (1848-1930), the author of the Balfour Declaration, had imposed limitations on the immigration of Jews to Britain a few years before declaring his country’s support for the Zionist project. Antisemitism and Zionism, far from being mutually exclusive, actually reinforce one another. This was one of the reasons why most Jews rejected Zionism when it appeared in the late 19th century.
Unlike those who live in the Holy Land— and who are intimately familiar with the conflict and its practical consequences — Christian Zionists relate to the conflict from afar as a spiritual matter. But even when some of them are transported to Jerusalem, they retain their strong beliefs. Mike Huckabee became a Baptist pastor long before President Trump appointed him U.S. ambassador to Israel. In a recent interview, he reiterated his belief that God had given the Jews all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates and added, “it would be fine if they took it all.” Neither the White House, nor the U.S. State Department has disavowed his statement.
This points to the significant presence of Christian Zionism in Washington’s corridors of power and, more generally, in American society. Benjamin Netanyahu, when he was Israeli ambassador to the United Nations in New York, actively cultivated links with Christian Zionists. This may be why he later boasted: “I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.” America’s participation in the war against Iran has proved Bibi right.