US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during his party conference address in Jerusalem
Photo: Republican National Convention / REUTERSUS foreign ministers have long had the unwritten law that they should not interfere in party politics. However, incumbent Mike Pompeo has now played a militant address at the Republican Congress that he recorded during his visit to Israel earlier this week.
The trouble was foreseeable. This was "absolutely scandalous" and "possibly illegal", it was immediately said from the ranks of the Democrats around presidential candidate Joe Biden. The foreign minister misused taxpayers' money for Donald Trump's election campaign.
But the opportunity was just too good for Pompeo.
The "Christian Zionists" see the US policy on Israel as the fulfillment of a divine plan of salvation
On the roof of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, he positioned himself in front of the camera so that the night old city shone behind him, framed by the slopes of the Mount of Olives. The golden dome of the Dome of the Rock, one of the main Islamic shrines, gleamed over his left shoulder. It rises where the Jewish temple once stood, which was destroyed by the Romans almost 2000 years ago.
In the eyes of millions of Trump supporters from the ranks of the “Christian Zionists”, these images have a very special meaning that others find difficult to understand. You see the American Israel policy under Trump as the fulfillment of a divine plan of salvation.
At the center of this plan, they believe, is Jerusalem. Pompeo, who has a decisive influence on the foreign policy of the most powerful nation on earth, is also convinced of this. As for all “Christian Zionists”, politics and religion are inseparable for him.
Powerful group of voters
According to this idea, Jerusalem is not only the capital of Israel and the holy city of Christians, Jews and Muslims, but the place where the fate of all humanity will be fulfilled - perhaps soon, in a few decades.
The “Christian Zionists” are a powerful subgroup of evangelicals in the USA who were decisive for Trump's election victory in 2016 and who are extremely loyal to him.
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What all evangelicals have in common is that the written word of the Bible is above all else. Some take the scriptures literally, others leave more room for interpretation.
In the end there is the end of the world
The "Christian Zionists" are completely filled with the thought of the end times as it is apocalyptically depicted in the Revelation of John. But other biblical books also come up with predictions that are supposed to be fulfilled one day - the gloomy prophecies as well as the heavenly promises.
A future major event should therefore be the return of Jesus Christ. Where? Of course there where he was crucified, in Jerusalem. The Son of God would fight with the Antichrist and bring him down, he would establish a kingdom on earth and rule for 1000 years, he would judge the believers and the unbelievers. Perceptions of order vary among believers, but the end is the same for all: the world is going to end and devout Christians go to heaven.
The "Christian Zionists" like to refer to the teaching of a nineteenth-century preacher, William E. Blackstone. He attributed a key role to the Jews in the struggle for the salvation of mankind. This was at a time when the Zionist movement was becoming a political factor. The return of the Jews to the land of the Bible had advocates in many lands.
The Christian preacher Blackstone was one of them. Because for him it was clear: only when Jerusalem is safely in Jewish hands again, Jesus could return and take up the fight against evil.
One of Blackstone's key terms was the "rapture", which he pictured as if in a Hollywood film: believing Christians would physically go to heaven during the end times and form a kind of army for the battle for Armageddon. A third of the Jews would also recognize Jesus as the Messiah, convert to the true faith and save themselves, but the rest would perish.
Successful lobbying for the relocation of the US embassy
US Secretary of State Pompeo has already spoken about the time of the "rapture". He praised Blackstone at a gathering of fellow believers last year: The preacher had once promoted US President Woodrow Wilson to give the Jews in Palestine a home.
Trump daughter Ivanka and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at the inauguration of the US Embassy in Jerusalem in 2018
Photo: RONEN ZVULUN / REUTERSToday leading "Christian Zionists" claim that they have successfully lobbyed for the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem. Apparently they are right. When the message was inaugurated in 2018, Pastor Robert Jeffress began with a prayer, and Reverend John Hagee gave the blessing at the end. Both are Trump supporters with a large following of believers. Both of them have said a lot of strange things.
Jeffress declared that if Jews were not converted to Christianity, eternal damnation would await them. "You cannot be saved if you are Jewish." Even a pious way of life will not change that. "Hell will be full of good religious people who have rejected the truth of Christ."
Bizarre theses from Trump's preacher
Hagee spread the bizarre thesis that Adolf Hitler was a vicarious agent of God. All Jews should better have followed the call of Zionism and emigrated to Palestine. "Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the Holocaust." Hitler was "a hunter", sent by God, as the prophet Jeremias already described it. Hagee also knew why: "Because God said my first priority for the Jewish people is to get them to return to Israel."
John Hagee: Controversial preacher with enormous influence
Photo: JACK GUEZ / AFPThe 80-year-old preacher from Texas has enormous influence, his organization Christians United For Israel (CUFI) has around seven million members and is considered the largest pro-Israel alliance in the United States.
When Hagee invites to his annual CUFI conferences, it is teeming with top-class politicians and diplomats from the USA and Israel. Several ambassadors from both countries took part in the digital gathering in July, Israel’s President Reuben Rivlin and rival government partners Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz. In addition, several senators from Washington - and of course Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
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