Since April 2025, Mike Huckabee, a white Evangelical Protestant and Baptist pastor, has been serving as the United States Ambassador to Israel. True to his Protestant zealotry, Huckabee — a right-wing religious extremist who previously served as governor of Arkansas and was once a Republican presidential candidate — openly claims that “Palestinians do not exist” and that Palestinian identity is merely “a political tool to try to take land from Israel.” He opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state and sees the Zionist settler-colonial project on Palestinian land as mere “neighbourhood development.” Responding to claims that Jewish settlers build “settlements” on occupied Palestinian land, Huckabee insists they are just “communities,” “neighbourhoods,” or “cities.” Huckabee has been religiously obsessed with Israel and Jews since his youth, having visited the country over a hundred times since 1973.
Huckabee is part of a long lineage of Evangelical Christians rooted in the Protestant Reformation and Millenarianism — a movement that emerged in the 16th century to “return” European Jews to Palestine and convert them to Protestantism in hopes of hastening what they call the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Evangelical Protestant Zionism predates Jewish Zionism by three centuries; it was, in fact, Protestant Zionism that laid the ideological groundwork for the Jewish settler-colony that would become Israel.
In late 18th-century England, Protestant missionary enthusiasm surged alongside the rise of the “Eastern Question” and the “Jewish Question,” reviving the Crusader obsession with ending Muslim control over the “Holy Land” and launching Protestant millenarian projects to convert Europe’s Jews and “return” them to Palestine — coinciding with the peak of British imperial expansion.
Two key British missionary societies focused heavily on Palestine and the broader region: the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East (founded in 1799, known as CMS) and the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews (founded in 1809, popularly known as the London Jews Society). The latter was established by two German Jews who had converted to Protestantism. It was launched by the evangelical Anglican British Bible Society, the missionary arm of the Clapham Sect, founded by William Wilberforce.
The Clapham Sect’s missionary efforts brought Joseph Samuel Christian Frederick Frey (1748–1827) — originally Joseph Samuel Levi before converting — from Berlin to London to evangelise British Jews. This mission drove the Clapham Sect to establish the London Jews Society. Both CMS and the London Jews Society enjoyed the backing of Britain’s elite and political figures, including Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston and his evangelical son-in-law Lord Shaftesbury. Palmerston directly engaged the Ottoman Sultan, seeking permission for the “return” of European Jews to Palestine. As Foreign Secretary in 1830, Palmerston was a vocal advocate for “restoring” Jews to the Holy Land. The London Jews Society succeeded in converting many British Jews to Protestantism — 250 of whom became Anglican clergymen, many having been rabbis before converting. By 1841, the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Anglican Church, was appointed as the patron of the London Jews Society.
Fanatical American evangelicals, along with Germans, Swedes, and others, joined this new “peaceful crusade” throughout the 19th century, seeking to convert Jews to Protestantism and seize Palestine. By World War I, all senior British leaders — including Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour — were hardline Christian Zionist evangelicals who supported the “return” of Jews to Palestine, culminating in the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
In the United States, Evangelical Christian Zionism manifested in the founding of several settlements in Palestine in the mid-19th century. These efforts aimed to convert Jews to Protestantism and accelerate the so-called Second Coming of Christ. This trend did not wane in the 20th century; instead, it gained momentum after Israel’s establishment, especially following the 1967 war. Pastors like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were at the forefront of these Protestant fanatics backing Israel, as were U.S. presidents with evangelical upbringings, including Bill Clinton by his own account.
Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel today is simply one heir to this historical tradition of evangelical fanaticism. Huckabee, like most evangelicals, believes God sides with Israel. He insists that Israelis did not win wars against Palestinians and their Arab neighbours because they had superior military power or air support — “Never, ever. They won because they fought as though they knew that if they lost, they wouldn’t just lose real estate but the very land God gave them 3,500 years ago. Because of that, I’m convinced God Himself intervened for His people on His land.”
At a dinner hosted by the Israel Heritage Foundation, Huckabee told his audience that his support for Israel stems from his faith in God: “We believe we bow to God. We did not create Him; He created us. And we are obliged to follow His law, rather than call on Him to follow one we naively make for ourselves.”
Huckabee’s extreme support for Israel has embarrassed even many within the pro-Israel camp in the United States. When then-President Barack Obama announced the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, Huckabee responded by claiming that Obama was leading Jews “to the door of the ovens,” a reference to Nazi death camps. The strongly pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League and even Israel’s own ambassador rebuked him for this statement. Yet Huckabee remains unrepentant, frequently citing religious texts that instruct believers to bless Israel to receive blessing themselves, warning: “Whoever curses Israel will be cursed.”
Huckabee is not the only evangelical zealot weaponised by the Trump administration in Israel’s favour. The U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, now implicated in the ongoing genocide against Gaza’s Palestinians, is led by another evangelical fanatic: Pastor Dr. Johnnie Moore, a former White House adviser during Trump’s first term.
Moore supports Trump’s vision of turning Gaza into a “Riviera.” His personal journey has included studying Theodor Herzl’s diaries and exploring the lesser-known Christian contributions to early Zionism. Moore once served as an aide to Jerry Falwell and has received numerous awards from Zionist organisations in recognition of his loyalty to Israel. Huckabee and Moore are not alone: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is yet another evangelical Christian who shifts between Catholicism and Evangelical Protestantism.
The rise of Evangelical Protestant Zionism in Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries coincided with European — especially British — imperialism. This was no accident: British imperialism provided a vast arena for Protestant zealots to spread their creed worldwide. In many cases, these missionaries paved the way for later British conquests. Whether in Kenya, New Zealand, Sierra Leone, or Palestine, Evangelical Protestantism consistently served as a handmaiden to British imperialism.
In Palestine’s case, the fusion of imperialism and evangelicalism took on special significance, as Palestine is the birthplace of both Christianity and Judaism. The surge in American Evangelical support for Israel after 1967 — when the United States became Israel’s imperial patron — is no coincidence either. The religious fanaticism and pro-American chauvinism of Evangelical Protestants drive not only their fervent Zionism but also their hatred of Palestinians, seen as enemies of their “chosen people” and of U.S. imperial interests in the Middle East. Their position today as the largest pro-Israel bloc in the U.S. — supporting the ongoing genocide of Palestinians — keeps American Evangelicals perfectly loyal to both their religious faith and their nationalist creed.
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