Christian Zionists Aren't for Turning

Earlier this month, more than 3,000 members of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) convened outside Washington, DC. A sizable, loyal, and foreign policy-focused segment of President Donald Trump’s coalition, the Washington summit offered a window into Christian Zionists’ preferences, priorities, and concerns. 

In some ways, this year’s conference reflected continuity. Speakers addressed Israel’s ingenuity and security challenges, the Iranian threat, and the specter of Jew-hatred. However, this year also reflected change. This summit included the most Jewish participants ever; 300 people attended a kosher dinner. Trump administration foreign policy decisions, which are typically celebrated, were questioned from the stage. Right-wing antisemites were overtly criticized, and there was an acknowledgment of the burgeoning fight over the direction of the post-Trump GOP. 

The administration’s handling of the Iran war — which was paused at that point— and related policy calls drew skepticism. Talk radio and Fox News host Mark Levin asked why the Iranian people aren’t “in the memorandum of understanding.” Referencing Lincoln’s difficulties during the Civil War, Levin said, “When you don’t win, you’ve lost.” Addressing the present, Levin said, “No boots on the ground they tell us, ever. Might as well retire the Marines and the Army. What do you think our enemies hear when we keep saying ‘no boots on the ground’? We motivate them!” Levin doesn’t believe “this regime should receive” a nickel, “let alone $324 billion,” and the audience agreed. All of this earned Levin an enthusiastic standing ovation. 

Levin’s view of Iran and the audience’s response are reflective of the president’s base. An April Pew poll reported that 86 percent of White evangelical Protestants considered “U.S. military action in Iran” important. A June Washington Free Beacon poll, conducted before the memorandum of understanding was unveiled, revealed “that Republican voters were supportive of the war by a whopping 59-point margin.” Meanwhile, the Reagan Institute’s summer survey found MAGA supporting “this year’s U.S. military actions (73% of those under 30, 89% of all MAGA Republicans), and majorities of each call preventing a nuclear-armed Iran a matter of consequence to American security (75% and 89%, respectively).” 

CUFI Action Fund Chairwoman Sandra Hagee Parker offered a more trusting counterpoint to Levin. On Iran, Parker told me, “So long as our military metal and muscle stays parked in the Persian Gulf, I’m not too worried about it.” Since Iran is “an unreliable partner,” though, whether the mediator is “Pakistan or Mickey Mouse, it really makes no difference to me.” Parker called Qatar “Public Enemy maybe not number one, but tied for first.” As for the president’s interest in giving Turkey F-35 planes, “It’s against law,” Parker said. “Erdogan is not an ally, [and] Erdogan is very clear about how he feels about the nation of Israel.” 

CUFI is simultaneously clear about who America’s allies are, as well as their own. Most attendees were likely Republicans, given that the Pew Research 2023-2024 Religious Landscape Study found that 70% of evangelicals are Republican or lean Republican. However, this crowd eschews the notion of “No enemies to the right.”  

Speakers named right-wing sources of antisemitism, including podcasters Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, along with former Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene. Journalist Stella Escobedo told the audience, “We are being gaslit by these influencers — Candace, Tucker — who use, by the way, what’s called the Gish Gallop . . . they throw out a thousand facts, and maybe one thing is right.” Overwhelming and exhausting listeners is, of course, the point. 

Parker and Washington State Director Pastor Russell Johnson mentioned that trio several more times during an interview. For example, Parker offered Carlson and Greene as examples of the right-wing antisemitism CUFI warned their people was coming “at least four years ago.” 

Parker recalled Carlson’s saying “‘Christian Zionists have brain rot,’” before backtracking. “I think that that’s anecdotal evidence proving that Christian evangelicals, A) are real, B) still support Israel, and C) can’t be bought.”  

Christian evangelicals are undoubtedly real. Pew’s Religious Landscape Study detailed that “23% of U.S. adults identify as evangelical Protestants.” Within that group, “14% are between the ages of 18 and 29, 30% are ages 30 to 49, 28% are ages 50 to 65 and 27% are 65 and older.” Pew additionally reported this year that 65% of “white evangelical Protestants have mostly positive views of Israel,” while 33% of black Protestants do. Sixty-five percent of white evangelicals also told Pew that “the Israel-Hamas conflict is personally important to them.” 

Pastor Johnson mentioned a trend of pastors retreating from preaching about Israel because they worry the issue is “too convoluted, or too controversial, or they don’t have access to the right type of data sets, or theological insights.” Some of those pastors “are afraid of being called political, controversial, or divisive. And some have embraced a theology that effectively divorces Israel from the promises God made to her.” All of that “creates a vacuum for toxic voices . . . like a Tucker or a Candace,” who “don’t speak for us.” 

As for the Heritage Foundation’s president standing by Tucker Carlson last year, and what some perceived as a related effort to eject Jews and Christian Zionists from the Republican coalition, Johnson replied, “I think most people didn’t even know [the] Heritage Foundation was still a thing.” Johnson said he had “followed that story pretty closely.” The absence of “moral courage or . . . intellectual aptitude” to oppose “the toxicity of antisemitism that exists in both the far-right and the far-left,” meant Heritage “failed the test, and . . . took a tactical strike to their organization. And, in my opinion, deservedly so.”  

For CUFI, moral courage and knowing right from wrong remain important constants. As CUFI Founder and Chairman Pastor John Hagee told the crowd, “Truth is not what a politician says it is — that changes every 24 hours. Truth is not a podcaster saying something that’s contrary to the biblical mandate. Truth is what God Almighty says it is.” 

Among those timeless truths is the importance of standing honorably by the American military and America’s steadfast allies, like Israel. Offering the oratorical equivalent of a subtweet seemingly directed at Vice President J.D. Vance and his political allies, Levin said, “When cowards anonymously leak to the newspapers, they should be revealed,” because “they’re not only undermining Israel, they’re undermining the United States of America and our military” and “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” 

Without naming him, Levin also delivered a message to Vance and any other elected officials tempted to woo the identitarian right:  

I want to just say this about the so-called Woke Right, which I call the Woke Reich. Any person who wants to serve in high office who doesn’t denounce the Woke Right — all of it — will not get my vote, will not get your vote, will not get the Jewish vote, will not get the evangelical vote, will not get the vote of patriotic Americans. You take a stand now, because there is no tomorrow if we don’t win today. 

The crowd agreed. 

Levin’s wanting a candidate willing to stand with Israel and against Jew-hatred is also a broader preference, according to recent polling. The Free Beacon poll “found that likely Republican primary voters prefer a candidate who supports a strong U.S.-Israel relationship by a margin of 57 percentage points and who explicitly denounces antisemitism by a margin of 52 percentage points.” The Reagan Institute reported continuing support for Israel. Sixty-three percent of MAGA Republicans under age 30 and 80 percent of all MAGA Republicans agree that Israel’s “security matters to the United States.” Further, 60 percent of MAGA Republicans under 30 and 73 percent of all MAGA Republicans further support “sending [Israel] U.S. weapons.” 

Christian Zionists may be only one segment of the Trump coalition. However, their strong support for Israel and goodwill toward American Jews place them in the Republican majority. The future remains to be written, but in the near term, a Democrat-like turn against Israel or American Zionists is unlikely to play well in Republican primaries, especially at the presidential level. And an important part of that is down to CUFI’s 10 million members.

Melissa Langsam Braunstein (@slowhoneybee) is an independent journalist in metro Washington.