There are 26 Jewish members (5%) of the 2023-24 House of Representatives in the United States.
They don’t all walk together in lockstep. Last month several Jewish Representatives broke ranks by voting against a bill on the grounds that it would criminalize valid criticism of the state of Israel.
The Antisemitism Awareness Act however received unanimous support from powerful Christian fundamentalists. The bill was pushed forward by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has ties to far-right Christian movements.
Christians United for Israel (CUFI)’s John Hagee and the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Ralph Reed defended the bill.
CUFI is the largest Zionist organisation in the US, with 10 million members. Based in San Antonio, Texas, CUFI is so important to the Republican Party, that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence all turned up at its 2023 annual conference. Former President Trump seeks its backing.
Research indicates that 51% of American evangelicals believe that Jews are God’s chosen people. Their faith tells them that the foundation of the State of Israel is a pre-requisite for the second coming of Jesus Christ, and that Israel must be defended at all costs.
The majority of Christian Zionists belong to “Bible Belt” evangelical churches in the southeast and south central United States. They oppose liberal values on gender, education, immigration and abortion.
On a National Radio podcast last May, Robert Jones, a religious scholar and President of the Public Religion Research Institute, explained how White Christian Zionist demographics tip the balance towards support for Israel:
‘White evangelicals count for 14% of the population. That’s still more than 47 million people in this country. Again, just to put that into perspective, only about 2% of the American population is Jewish, and about 1% is Muslim. They [White evangelicals] are all voting for pro Israeli candidates. They really turn out to the polls, and they’re overwhelmingly clustered into one party…
