How American Evangelicals Chose Power Over Principle in Israel-Palestine

 

Blind Faith & Blind Politics

How American Evangelicals Chose Power Over Principle in Israel-Palestine

By Kieran Beville

 

In the long, anguished history of the Holy Land, few forces have proved as corrosive to the hope of peace as the unwavering, often unthinking support of American evangelicals for the state of Israel. While millions speak of “standing with Israel” as if it were a pure act of faith, this solidarity too often reveals itself as political idolatry — a devotion not to justice, peace, or the teachings of Christ, but to an eschatological script and a culture war mentality that demands enemies.

This is not a new story, but it is a story that grows darker each year. Decade after decade, the evangelical community’s zeal has hardened into a moral blindness, where the pursuit of biblical prophecy and right-wing geopolitics override the cries of the oppressed and the inconvenient demands of truth. As bombs fall, walls rise, and young Palestinians see their futures shrink to rubble and razor wire, America’s evangelical bloc cheers from afar, declaring the suffering necessary, even righteous. And in that cheer, they betray the very gospel they profess to uphold.

A Faith Captured by Politics

To understand how this came to pass, one must see beyond the comforting myth that evangelical support for Israel is simply an expression of biblical solidarity. It is, rather, a modern political construction — a marriage of dispensationalist theology, Cold War politics, and American exceptionalism.

In the 1970s and 1980s, figures like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and later John Hagee infused evangelical culture with a fervent Christian Zionism. They preached that the return of Jews to the land of Israel was not merely a political fact but a divine mandate — the prelude to Armageddon, the Second Coming, and ultimately, the triumph of their particular brand of faith.

Yet beneath the surface of prophecy lay an all-too-human desire: to wield power. Supporting Israel became a badge of belonging within the Republican coalition, a signal of unwavering commitment to a black-and-white moral universe in which the West (and Israel) embodied goodness, and their enemies embodied evil. Over time, the spiritual dimension became inextricable from a nationalist impulse: evangelicals would “bless” Israel not merely for heaven’s reward but to wage their own culture wars on earth.

In this alliance, faith became fused with force. And so a community whose founder preached “blessed are the peacemakers” became the most reliable American constituency cheering every new settlement, every wall, every bomb dropped on Gaza — all in the name of biblical fidelity.

A Theology of Sacrifice — But Not Their Own

What makes this position so devastating is not just its effect on policy, but the underlying moral calculus: American evangelicals, many of whom have never set foot in the Middle East, sanctify violence and dispossession inflicted on another people, so long as it fits the script they believe God has written.

Consider the logic: Palestinian displacement becomes a “sign of the times,” evidence that prophecy is unfolding; Israeli military actions are seen not as human choices subject to moral scrutiny, but as steps foreordained by divine will. The victims — civilians killed in bombings, children in refugee camps, families evicted from ancestral homes — become props, their suffering explained away or rendered invisible.

This is a theology of sacrifice, but always someone else’s sacrifice. It is easy to bless a war when you will never hear the sirens or bury the dead. It is easy to call for unending confrontation when you imagine that confrontation must precede the final glory of your own salvation.

Silence on Justice and Worse

The result is not merely theological distortion, but moral abdication. The evangelical establishment often insists it loves “the Jewish people” — and perhaps it does, in a selective, utilitarian way — yet it expresses a chilling indifference to actual justice and peace.

When Israeli politicians expand settlements in blatant violation of international law, evangelicals do not protest. When Israeli forces kill journalists or peaceful demonstrators, they remain silent. When Christian Palestinians — the oldest Christian communities in the world — cry out against occupation and discrimination, American evangelicals turn their backs.

It is a silence that reveals a terrible truth: for too many, justice is irrelevant unless it advances the end-times narrative. Peace is undesirable if it delays prophecy. Truth is inconvenient if it complicates the story they have chosen to believe.

The Gospel Betrayed

In embracing this political idolatry, evangelicals have not merely failed their Palestinian neighbours; they have betrayed the radical, unsettling message of the gospel itself.

At the heart of Christian teaching is the idea that every person, every community, bears the image of God and demands dignity. Christ stood with the oppressed and called his followers to do the same, even when it was costly. He blessed the peacemakers, not the warmongers. He wept for cities doomed by violence.

Yet in the evangelical discourse on Israel, the humanity of Palestinians vanishes almost entirely. They become a faceless mass, either obstacles to prophecy or foot soldiers of radical Islam. Their legitimate grievances — exile, occupation, statelessness — are waved away. Even Palestinian Christians are often accused of heresy if they challenge the narrative.

What remains is not faith but a simulacrum: a brittle, triumphalist ideology that dresses itself in scripture but is rooted in fear, pride, and tribal loyalty.

The Cost — and the Opportunity Lost

The practical costs are enormous. American evangelicals wield significant political influence, and their uncritical support has helped sustain decades of US policy that shields Israel from accountability while starving diplomatic efforts for peace.

Yet the deeper tragedy is spiritual. Imagine if that same energy, money, and passion were directed toward reconciliation rather than endless conflict. Imagine evangelical churches supporting coexistence projects, building schools and hospitals in both Israel and Palestine, demanding justice for all people of the land rather than just one side.

Such a movement could have been a prophetic witness: a voice refusing to be captive to any state or ideology, insisting that peace is possible and necessary. Instead, evangelicals largely chose to be court prophets, baptising the status quo in holy language.

A Crisis of Witness

There are, of course, exceptions. A growing minority of evangelicals are challenging the old orthodoxy, travelling to the region, listening to Palestinian Christians, and questioning the dogmas of Christian Zionism. But they remain marginalised, often dismissed as naïve or even anti-Semitic for daring to ask whether justice should be universal rather than selective.

This moment, then, is a crisis of witness: will American evangelicals remain known as cheerleaders of power and occupation, or can they recover a faith rooted in compassion, truth, and humility?

For decades, evangelical leaders have warned of the danger of moral relativism in secular society. Yet they have practiced their own form of moral relativism: condemning violence when it suits them, blessing it when it serves prophecy; defending human rights in abstract but rejecting them when they complicate loyalty to Israel.

What is missing is not knowledge — the facts of occupation, displacement, and suffering are well documented — but courage. The courage to see the other as fully human. The courage to break from tribal loyalty. The courage to believe that God is not a nationalist and that faith does not demand blindness.

Toward a New Witness

If American evangelicals are to have any credible moral voice in the future, it must begin with repentance: an honest reckoning with decades of complicity in injustice. It must mean listening to Palestinian Christians, recognising the daily indignities and violence of occupation, and refusing to see any human being as expendable for the sake of prophecy.

It must mean rejecting the seductive myth that God’s purposes depend on tanks, walls, and bombs, and remembering instead the Jesus who entered Jerusalem on a donkey, wept for the city, and offered peace.

It must mean recovering the ancient truth that peace-making is holy work, even when it is slow and imperfect. That justice must be impartial or it is no justice at all. That faith is not proven by the ability to demonise the other, but by the willingness to love them.

Conclusion

The story of American evangelicals and Israel is not yet finished. But it is at a turning point. The question is not whether Christians should care about Israel — of course they should — but whether they will care about Palestinians too. Whether they will choose prophecy over people, or remember that faith demands seeing the face of Christ in every neighbour, even the inconvenient ones.

In the end, what is at stake is not just the fate of a distant land, but the integrity of the evangelical witness itself. For what shall it profit a movement to gain political influence, yet lose its soul?