Politico has a piece called “The Israel Primary,” about all the Republican presidential candidates going to Israel as a “mandatory” stop. It’s a missed opportunity, because the causes of these pilgrimages are stated to be essentially right wing ideological/evangelical Christian. Not a word about conservative Jewish money, Sheldon Adelson, or the conservative thinktanks in D.C. that wield power and are Jewish Zionist…
Israel’s status as an important stop for presidential candidates isn’t exactly new. Obama visited Israel in the midst of his 2008 campaign. Back in 1998, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush went to Israel and got a helicopter tour from Ariel Sharon as part of an effort to show his mettle on the international stage.
But Israel has loomed ever larger in Republican politics since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, particularly among Jewish conservatives and evangelical voters who cared deeply about Israel’s well being to begin with.
One reason Israel is so important to evangelicals is its biblical role in setting the stage for the Second Coming of Jesus—its survival is essential.
For others, a country that was already a U.S. ally has become a symbol of Western values under siege in a region swept with violent extremism. For a political party defined for much of the last decade by its stance on fighting radical Islam, there’s no foreign nation that can command greater sympathy.
