There is significant infighting among the American right concerning the priorities of the Trump administration. Elected on an America First” platform, Trump’s conservative critics argue the administration is far too concerned with foreign policy in the Middle East and not concerned enough with domestic priorities. They attribute this to the outsized influence of Israel, achieved through the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Trump has responded in his usual manner. You bring a knife, I’ll bring an ICBM. He has called for Rep. Thomas Massie to be primaried and imbued Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene with the dreaded Trump nickname. “Marjorie Taylor Brown,” meaning the grass has turned rotten, as Trump helpfully explained. 

But despite Trump’s efforts to isolate a few legislators, there is evidence of a significant divide among his base. “MIGA,” standing for Make Israel Great Again and such mockery of Trump’s key slogans have trended on social media. 

It is true that AIPAC is highly influential, although it is not among the top ten lobbyists representing foreign governments. Firms representing Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt outspend them. Still, when campaigning, American politicians don’t make it a point to express their devotion to the welfare of those countries as they do to the State of Israel. More importantly, the U.S. government hasn’t gone to war on behalf of any of those countries who spend more lobbying as it has for Israel.

Critics point to AIPAC and simply say “follow the money.” Not only do these politicians depend upon AIPAC’s support to get elected; they fear AIPAC’s wrath should their support for the foreign government waver. 

But that alone does not explain AIPAC’s outsized influence. Politicians depend on contributions from all sorts of special interests. Why is this one so effective? Why does the Republican Party in particular seem almost fully controlled by this lobby?

For a tiny minority on the right, the answer is “the Jews,” in the same sense Hitler said, “the Jews.” They view people of Jewish descent as a global conspiracy to rule the world surreptitiously through control of financial institutions and behind the scenes political machinations. This fringe element made enough noise for AIPAC to label anyone who opposes pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy as antisemitic. 

But as for the other 99.99% of critics of U.S. foreign policy, including prominent politicians and media like Tucker Carlson, Thomas Massie, Megyn Kelly, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, antisemitism is not the explanation. In fact, some of those named have had to overcome a predisposition for U.S. government support for Israel to arrive at their current positions. Regardless, they make legitimate arguments for why Washington should not be involved in any foreign conflicts nor provide any foreign aid with over $38 trillion in debt and trillion-dollar deficits for the foreseeable future.

But still, none of these critics seem to acknowledge the reason AIPAC holds such sway with American politicians. They either feign or express genuine confusion as to why U.S. elected officials would prioritize a foreign country over their own. But there is no mystery here.

The reason AIPAC is so influential is not “the Jews,” but “the Christians,” meaning American Christians. Christian U.S. citizens who turn out to vote at a very high rate in U.S. Elections. It is the votes of these Christians and its ability to affect them that makes AIPAC powerful. 

We’re not talking about all Christians, or even most, but rather a significant minority who believe not only that the “end times” as they call them are imminent, but that U.S. foreign policy will literally influence how those end times turn out. Based upon a novel and relatively recent understanding of the New Testament, this group of Christian Zionists believe, in short, that the U.S. government must support the modern state of Israel for the prophecies in the Book of Revelations to come true.

To most Christians, that seems crazy. I was raised Catholic in Western New York in a family that was deeply religious. I was an altar boy, and when older, a lector for my parish. Both my parents served on the parish council at different times. My mother was a Eucharistic minister and personally catered the Christmas party after midnight mass each year, in addition to all sorts of other services she provided the parish. In addition to being both a lector and Eucharistic minister, my father also ran the religious instruction department for the parish.

I grew up immersed in Christianity. But the idea Israeli politics had anything to do with it was completely unknown to me or any Catholic or Protestant I knew. When our priests or ministers quoted the Bible, they quoted Jesus himself from the gospels, not the arcane prophecies of Revelations. We prayed for peace in the Holy Land the same way we prayed for peace in Ireland or Central America: because war is bad and Jesus said love your enemies. End of story.

Nobody ever told us the restoration of Israel in 1948 was step 47 on a 72-step Rapture checklist. Nobody I grew up with ever heard of the Scofield Bible. We were never taught Armageddon was a foreign-policy goal.

But walk into certain megachurches in Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, and many other “red states,” and you’ll see a different Christianity—one where the end-times clock started ticking the day David Ben-Gurion declared statehood. For these folks, every rocket fired at Tel Aviv is a fulfillment of prophecy. Every settlement bulldozer is another brick in the Third Temple. Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran can burn as long as the stage is properly set for the Jesus of Revelations, a war leader if the book is taken literally, to return.
 

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Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? 

 Tom