WASHINGTON (AP) — One of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first meetings in the United States this week was not with American Jewish leaders but with evangelical ones.
The conservative Christians met with Netanyahu on Monday at Blair House, which is near the White House. The gathering came ahead of the Israeli leader’s meeting with President Donald Trump on Tuesday, which led to Trump’s dramatic proposals about the future of Gaza.
“The fact that our meeting took place before his meetings with President Trump and U.S. elected officials is indicative of the strength of the historic friendship that exists between Israel and Christians in America,” said Pastor Jentezen Franklin, who leads a Georgia megachurch and has served as a Trump spiritual adviser.
Among those in attendance were former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist pastor and Trump’s pick to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel, and Tony Perkins, president of the socially conservative Family Research Council.
Who are Christian Zionists?
Many of those in attendance were Christian Zionists, including Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, an evangelical organization that claims 10 million members.
“The Prime Minister is here – as his country begins to conclude its longest war — to effectively reset the U.S.-Israel relationship after the damage done by four years of, at best, lukewarm support for the Jewish state,” Hagee told The Associated Press via email.
Christian Zionism is an ideology among some evangelical Christians, particularly in the United States, that interprets the Bible as promising the land of Israel eternally to the Jews and asserting that God would bless Israel’s supporters. Some proponents also interpret the Bible as predicting many Jews’ eventual conversion to Christianity.
The meeting was a reminder that evangelical Christian Zionists are among Israel’s strongest supporters in the U.S. – and they wield considerable influence as Trump begins his second term. They have also backed controversial sentiments expressed by Republicans and Trump this week over the territories of Gaza and the West Bank.
Trump suggests the U.S. could take over Gaza
Trump, during a shocking news conference with Netanyahu on Tuesday, suggested that Palestinians from the Gaza Strip could be removed and resettled elsewhere, with the U.S. taking over the war-torn region.
The president, echoing his real estate developer past, said he envisions a Gaza that could be “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
“This could be something that could be so valuable. This could be so magnificent,” Trump said, adding that the people that live there would be able to live in peace.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a key White House adviser during his first term, has also praised the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property.”
“I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up,” Kushner said a year ago.
Muslim and Jewish leaders react
The national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Nihad Awad, assailed Trump’s proposal.
“Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people, not the United States, and President Trump’s call to displace Palestinians from their land either temporarily or permanently is an absolute non-starter,” Awad said in a statement.
“If President Trump wants to make history with some sort of grand peace deal, he must start by accepting that the way to make permanent peace is to end the Israeli occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.”
Trump’s proposals underscore “the colonial nature of the Palestinian struggle,” said Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
“Any forced relocation of the Palestinian population will only escalate violence and resistance, leading to more instability in the region,” he said. “Anti-American sentiment will spike even further than what we have witnessed over the last year.”
Among U.S. Jewish leaders there were mixed views.
The president of an umbrella group representing relatively progressive congregations, Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the Union for Reform Judaism, was skeptical.
“While this moment indeed requires bold thinking to bring safety and autonomy to Israel and the Palestinians, what we heard yesterday will not build that future; it will undermine it,” Jacobs said.
“A peaceful Palestinian state alongside a secure Jewish state of Israel has to be reached through a negotiated agreement between the two parties,” he added. “Forcibly removing either populace will only perpetuate the conflict.”
The executive vice president of a more conservative group, Rabbi Moshe Hauer of the Orthodox Union, said Trump’s pronouncements about Gaza “were certainly a shock” and might be viewed in some quarters as insane.
Yet he described the policies affecting Gaza for the past two decades as “utter insanity,″ with Hamas holding control and then invading Israel in 2023.
“There may be in this new proposal something to digest and think about,” he said. “We have gotten into a very unproductive place, an insanity that keeps repeating itself. Let’s take a step back, and think, ‘What if this really works, and bodes well for the future of everybody.’”
Trump’s proposals were praised by Sam Markstein, communications director for the Republican Jewish Coalition.
“President Trump is a disruptor, and after decades of failed policies, we are encouraged that the president is pursuing a bold, new vision for the region. … As the most pro-Israel president in U.S. history, we are confident in President Trump’s ability to bring security, peace, and prosperity to this troubled region.”
Is it the West Bank? Or Judea and Samaria?
One longtime goal of Christian Zionists, and their allies, got a boost this past week when Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) reintroduced legislation that would require all official U.S. documents and materials to use the term “Judea and Samaria” instead of the “West Bank.” The legislation was introduced in the House by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-New York).
“The Jewish people’s legal and historic rights to Judea and Samaria goes back thousands of years,” Cotton said. “The U.S. should stop using the politically charged term West Bank to refer to the biblical heartland of Israel.”
Israel’s government refers to the West Bank by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria, and considers it the historical heartland of the Jewish people. Palestinians and the U.S. government refer to the occupied territory as the West Bank.
Israel captured the West Bank in 1967 along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem — territory the Palestinians seek for a future state. The U.S., along with most of the international community, has traditionally supported the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines.
American Christian Zionists often use the biblical terms Judea and Samaria as a signal of their support for Israel and its annexation of the West Bank. Speakers at the annual conference of Christians United for Israel frequently invoke the biblical language as an applause line.
Huckabee has repeated that the West Bank belongs to Israel, and recently said “the title deed was given by God to Abraham and to his heirs.”
Ironically, Judea and Samaria were once part of an ancient two-state scenario. For at least two hundred years of Israel’s royal history, Judea and Samaria represented separate kingdoms: Judea continued the dynasty of King Solomon while Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom, called Israel.
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AP journalist Mariam Fam contributed from Egypt.
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