In a world of state-like entities and since times immemorial, the need has been felt at all times to communicate views to each other on matters of interest reliably through persons of confidence who have the ability to communicate, negotiate and persuade. The content, context and form of these communications change and will continue to do so.

These functions are traditionally, though not exclusively, entrusted to ambassadors. Hence the need to give credence to what is said by them or through them. At times, these utterances raise eyebrows and lead to misunderstandings.

Ambassador’s view

A few months ago, the new United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee publicly expressed the view (citing the Bible) that the land from the Nile to the Euphrates was given by god to Abraham for a chosen people, and should revert to them.

Its implications for the territorial expansion of Israel are evident and have been viewed as such by the Arab states who considered it ‘dangerous and inflammatory’. It does not seem to have been disowned by the United States authorities.

Its backdrop for wider American perceptions is relevant since somewhat similar views have been expressed from time to time. In 1818 President John Adams wrote, “I really wish the Jews again in Judia an independent nation” and believed that they would gradually become Unitarian Christians.

Media writings show that Ambassador Huckabee is an ordained Southern Baptist pastor noted for his Evangelical views and also that Christian Zionism is a political and religious ideology that espouses the return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land. They consider the founding of Israel in 1948 to be in accordance with biblical prophecy mentioned in the Old Testament and that the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Levent is a prerequisite to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Little is known about Christian Zionism in the world beyond the American subcontinent. Its impact on the world outside is nevertheless considerable. Historians have recorded that in “late 19th century non-messianic restorationism was largely driven by the fate of the Jews of the Russian Empire, beset by poverty and by deadly, government-inspired pogroms. It was widely accepted that western nations did not wish to receive Jewish immigrants.”

In November 1917 the United Kingdom’s Home Secretary Balfour said in a letter to Lord Rothschild that “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. This came to be known as the Balfour Declaration.

In the U.S., Evangelical Christians count for a good segment of the population. According to a Pew survey in 2003, more than 60% of the Evangelical Christians and about 50% of African-Americans agree that the existence of Israel fulfils a biblical prophecy.

Impact of advocacy

An organisation, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), founded in 2006, has a membership of 10 million. Some sources also indicate that the number of Christian Zionists in the U.S. outweighs the number of Jewish Zionists. A Pew survey in 2013 revealed that “twice as many white evangelical Protestants as Jews say that Israel was given to the Jewish people by god (82% versus 40%).”

The membership base of CUFI, according to its website, is “over 10 million members” in of 2024, which exceeded the estimated 7.6 million Jewish people in the country (as of the 2020 census). It particularly helped make support for Israel a central part of the Republican Party platform. Some suggest that this advocacy for Israel has translated to a significant impact on U.S. geopolitical strategy, since Evangelical Christians make up an estimated one third of the Republican Party’s membership.

Relevant in this context is the pattern of official U.S. thinking on the question of Israel since 1948. On May 14, 1948, President Truman, influenced by domestic pressure, officially recognised the state of Israel making it the first country to recognise the new nation.

Over 75 years have passed since that tragic happening known by the people of Palestine as the nakba (catastrophe). Wars followed by attempts at negotiations have not succeeded in restoring peace. American policies have wavered with Presidents, some of whom were self-declared ‘Zionists’.

Over time, Israeli attitudes have tended to harden. Many there subscribe to Jabotinsky’s dictum that ‘Zionism is a colonising adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force’.

The unstated, or softly stated, major premise in Israeli attitudes over decades has been that of American aid, financial and military. It has at times been used to soften Israeli policies and postures, at others to reinforce them.

An article’s view

In the first week of March this year, the journal, Foreign Affairs, published an article by Dana Stroul, an academic and former U.S. State Department official, with the caption America and Israel’s War to Remake the Middle East. It opined that the present military campaigns — ‘Epic Fury’ and ‘Roaring Lion’ — constitute “the first truly combined US-Israel military operation — and it is hard to overstate how groundbreaking the partnership is.”

The article opines that the “the US and Israel militaries are fusing their operations even as their publics drift further apart”. Will changing public attitudes make an impact for sanity?

Given some recent presidential pronouncements, did the Ambassador speak out of turn?

Hamid Ansari was the Vice-President of India (2007-17)