Haaretz’s Caricature of Evangelical Christians

By: Shlomi Ben-Meir May 14, 2026

“Netanyahu’s Exploitation of the U.S. Christian Right Is Blowing Up in His Face,” Haaretz global editor Noa Landau argues in her May 3 column. “For many years, Benjamin Netanyahu … oversaw the formation of an artificial alliance between the Christian right (mainly, though not exclusively, in the U.S.) and the Jewish right.” But since Oct. 7, 2023, she explains, this alliance has been breaking down, as part of the deterioration in American public opinion toward Israel.

Illustrative photo of Haaretz by Tamar Sternthal

Noa Landau’s article is saturated with gloating, strawman arguments, and blatant lies regarding the attitude of Evangelical Christians in America toward Israel and the Jews. She presents a superficial and stereotypical analysis which Haaretz would not allow itself to publish about any other group of people. Landau can keep the gloating to herself. Read on for a dismantlement of the lies, stereotypes and errors.

The End Times Vision: The Real Reason for Evangelical Support for Israel?

Landau writes:

Creating this unholy alliance was a complex, roundabout task, because at its theological foundation lies an unpleasant truth: The evangelicals seek the fulfillment of the apocalyptic prophecy in which Israel and the Jewish infidels burn in hell in the war at Armageddon, while the Jewish right – especially its very religious precincts, willfully turn a blind eye to the second part of the prophecy in order to exploit Christians’ enthusiastic support for its first part, in which Jews from all over the world return to Israel to live in peace and security until Gog and Magog come to destroy it. [Emphasis added.]

Landau expresses a long-standing and widespread claim about Zionist Evangelical Christians: that their enthusiastic support for Israel stems from eagerness to advance a vision whereby, after being gathered in the Holy Land, the vast majority of Jews will be annihilated in the apocalypse, and those who remain will recognize the divinity of Jesus and convert to Christianity.

This is a caricature whose connection to reality is extremely tenuous. Landau will not find prominent Evangelical preachers today who present the vision of the end of the world and the annihilation of the Jews as a motive for supporting Israel. Furthermore, in the most comprehensive survey of Protestant Christians in America (of which Evangelicals constitute a stream) published in April, over two-thirds (67.3 percent) of Evangelicals agreed with the statement that “my support for Israel stems from concern for the Jewish people today, not from end-times beliefs.”

So why do Evangelical Christians tend to support Israel? The Christian-Zionist position is detailed, among other places, in the book “Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State,” written by David Brog, the former (Jewish) executive director of the organization Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which is the largest Christian-Zionist organization in the U.S. CUJI founder, renowned Evangelical pastor and preacher John Hagee, praised the book, as did many other Evangelical clergymen. Brog details the motives for Christian support for Israel as follows:

There is the view of the Jews as the chosen people, and that whoever stands by them receives God’s blessing: This is based on God’s words to Abraham in the Book of Genesis: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Evangelicals believe that the covenant God made with the Jewish people in the Bible is eternal and has never been revoked. Pastor Jerry Falwell formulated this in modern terms in 1983:

God deals with nations in relation to how nations deal with Israel … I believe God blesses America and has blessed America because we have blessed Abraham and have blessed the Jews.

Brog lists additional reasons including the recognition of Christianity’s Jewish roots and repentance for the treatment Jews received in the Christian world; perceiving the Return to Zion and the establishment of the State of Israel as the fulfillment of ancient biblical prophecies; viewing the alliance with Israel as a strategic asset for America; and acknowledging the shared values between Israel and the U.S., such as democracy, liberty, and Judeo-Christian values. Recent surveys confirm that these are indeed the primary motives for Evangelical support for Israel.

What is the state of Christian support for Israel today?

Landau continues: “Over the past two years… we have seen the collapse of this alliance of extremists.”

Indeed, there is a significant decline in support for Israel in American public opinion – but Landau distorts the truth when she speaks of a “collapse” in Evangelical support. According to the latest Pew Research Center survey, 65 percent of Evangelicals have a favorable view of Israel – well above the general American public (37 percent). There is a downward trend, but it is much more moderate than among the general American public. Additionally, a Chosen People Ministries survey states that 75 percent of Evangelicals view supporting Israel as a “biblical obligation.” This survey, as well as the Grey Matter survey linked above, indicate that there is indeed a decline in support for Israel among younger generations, mirroring the trend among the general American public. However, Landau’s assertions about a “collapse” among Evangelicals that occurred “in the last two years” are an extreme and unfounded interpretation.

The theological difficulty posed by the Abraham Accords?

Noa Landau writes further:

And from all this pus, another complex truth emerges – which is that the enemy against which this Judeo-Christian alliance supposedly stands, the Muslims, is not really an enemy.

In the latest war of Armageddon, America and Israel heightened their open cooperation with the Muslim world, especially Arab countries in the Persian Gulf that also came under attack from Iran.

This fact – along with the old alliances with Jordan and Egypt and new alliances, such as the Abraham Accords, further complicates the racist rationale of the Judeo-Christian religious right.

In other words: The Israeli alliance with Christian supporters of Israel was based on a struggle against a “common enemy,” which is “the Muslim infidels” – meaning, the entire Muslim world. According to this analysis, the allies hated the common enemy so unconditionally that any cooperation with any Muslims and Arabs dismantles the foundational assumptions of the alliance.

This is a particularly false and malicious straw man. No one in the religious Judeo-Christian right claims that “all Muslims are enemies” or that there should be no cooperation with Muslim and Arab countries.

But her lie distorts reality even further. This is because there is no indication that the Abraham Accords, or any cooperation with Arab countries, caused any theological or ideological difficulty for any of the members of the “alliance.” In Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu (the very one who, according to Landau, labored for years to create the alliance with Christians against Muslims) signed the Abraham Accords, praised them and described them as the fulfillment of ancient biblical prophecies.

And in the United States, Evangelical leaders were among the strongest, most vocal, and most influential forces supporting the Abraham Accords. They viewed the agreements not merely as a diplomatic achievement, but also as a biblical prophetic fulfillment (the children of Abraham uniting in peace). They provided President Trump with political backing for the accords, praised them immediately upon the signing, and continued to promote them and press for their expansion even afterward. One of the reasons for this was the need to cooperate against Iranian aggression. A survey conducted at the time showed that 68 percent of Evangelicals supported the agreement signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

In Conclusion

Landau concludes: “This fact… revealing how more complex the geopolitical reality is than childish, simplistic religious preaching that paints the world in black and white.”

At least here, it can be said that Landau is absolutely right. Reality is indeed much more complex than the childish, superficial, and stereotypical depiction she wrote and published on the pages of Haaretz. The Israeli reality and the Evangelical public are more interesting, more complex, and worthy of a much deeper examination than columns that present reality in black and white, and make no attempt to back up claims with evidence.

For the Hebrew version of this post, see CAMERA Hebrew.

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