Prominent evangelicals are among the most enthusiastic and most assertive Zionists.
Jerusalem, April 1 - Israel's prime minister, facing dire electoral prospects amid a war that caught his administration unprepared, began inquiries this week as to the possibility of expanding the franchise to a more robust support base: American fundamentalist Christians.
Binyamin Netanyahu instructed aides several days ago to research the feasibility of allowing US evangelicals to vote in Israeli parliamentary elections, several of those aides disclosed, now that dozens of hostages - both living and dead - remain in Hamas hands in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, while the Netanyahu government failed to see the murderous operation of that coming, failed to marshal an effective response immediately, failed to remove Hamas from power despite overwhelming military superiority. He also confronts ongoing Opposition efforts to curtail his power and remove him from office through lawfare, and a largely-adversarial media.
"If the prime minister can get evangelicals to vote for him, Likud would crush the next elections," explained adviser Caroline Glick, who, while privy to the initiative, is not a participant. "Prominent evangelicals are among the most enthusiastic and most right-wing Zionists. They significantly outnumber not only Zionist Jews but Jews in general. And they're organized on a local level, through their churches and communities. Regardless of the prospects of the move's success from a legal perspective, it would be dumb not to try to make it happen."
For generations, polls of American evangelicals have shown near-uniform support for Israel, often to an extent that many Israelis find uncomfortable, for multiple reasons. Among them, experts say, are that fact that as a rule, Israelis favor security policies more moderate and accommodating of Palestinians than evangelicals do, and that many Israelis harbor suspicion of evangelicals' motives for the support, based as some of it is in Christian eschatological visions of a final good-vs.-evil battle that requires the Jewish people be gathered in their ancestral homeland for it to take place. Only a small minority of evangelicals cite the latter factor as the main reason for their support; the majority simply see Israel as a bastion of humanity and democracy in a sea of barbarism and tyranny, and feel solidarity with the people that produced Jesus and his teachings.
Observers differ on the prospects and wisdom of the move. "It's supposed to be the Jewish State," cautioned Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. "This won't go over well with the Knesset, where it won't pass without serious support. Netanyahu's desperate, so there's no telling what move he'll make, but don't expect, say, Mike Huckabee to be stumping for Likud in Arkansas."
"Besides," he remarked, "those folks would be more likely to support further-right [Itamar] Ben-Gvir (Jewish Power) and [Betzalel] Smotrich (Religious Zionism), not the namby-pamby, center-right wimpiness they see in Likud."
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