How Christians Became Israel’s Fiercest Defenders

Based on the reactions to my last article on different platforms, what I find deeply fascinating, even bewildering, is the dramatic turnaround in how Christians have viewed Jews and, by extension, the modern state of Israel. For centuries, throughout much of Europe and across the Christian world, Jews were seen as the other: abominable, unwelcome, and often persecuted. But today, many Christians, especially in the West, justify virtually every action Israel takes. Whether in Gaza or Tehran, the reactions are predictable. The shift is so stark it borders on theological whiplash.

A History of Hatred

To understand the magnitude of this change, we have to journey back to the roots of Christian-Jewish relations. For nearly two millennia, Jews were blamed for the death of Jesus Christ, the infamous charge of deicide. This wasn’t a fringe view. It was mainstream theology.

In medieval Europe, Jews were the victims of repeated expulsions and violence:

• Expelled from England in 1290, France in 1306 and 1394, and Spain in 1492.
• Forced into ghettos, barred from owning land, and often massacred during pogroms or accused in blood libel trials.

Martin Luther, the father of Protestantism, initially expressed sympathy toward Jews. But when they did not convert to his reformed Christianity, he wrote virulent anti-Jewish texts that would later be cited approvingly by the Nazis.

By the 20th century, antisemitism was deeply woven into the fabric of Western society. The Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered, did not emerge in a vacuum, it was the climax of centuries of Christian hostility.

The Turning Point: Guilt, Theology, and the State of Israel

After World War II, the West, and especially the Christian West, began to reckon with its moral failure.

• The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) issued Nostra Aetate, which officially repudiated the deicide charge and urged Christians to build respectful relations with Jews.
• In the United States, evangelicals began to reinterpret biblical prophecy through a Zionist lens. The rebirth of Israel in 1948 and the capture of Jerusalem in 1967 were seen not just as political events, but as signs of the Second Coming.

This gave rise to Christian Zionism, particularly powerful in the American South and Midwest. Suddenly, Jews were no longer cursed, but blessed, even essential to the fulfillment of God’s plan.

From Theological Shift to Political Power

Today, Christian Zionism is a potent political force:

• Christians United for Israel (CUFI) is one of the most influential pro-Israel lobbying groups in the U.S.
• Donald Trump, heavily backed by evangelical voters, moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in 2018, recognizing it as Israel’s capital, a move cheered by Christian Zionists as a prophetic milestone.

This uncritical support has extended to controversial policies:

• Endorsement of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
• Dismissal of Palestinian rights and suffering.
• Framing Israel as a divine necessity rather than a modern nation-state subject to international law.

Uncritical Support or Theological Obsession?

This shift has created what some call a “moral blind spot”. Criticism of Israel, even when grounded in humanitarian concerns, is often branded as antisemitism or heresy. For some evangelicals, opposing Israel is tantamount to opposing God Himself.

This is not a universal Christian view. Many Christians, including Catholic and progressive Protestant denominations, support peace, human rights, and a two-state solution. But the loudest political voices often come from those who see Israel through the lens of end-times prophecy, not diplomacy.

Psychosis or Redemption?

The transformation is so complete that it’s hard not to see a touch of psychological overcompensation:

• Is it guilt for past atrocities?
• Is it theological opportunism?
• Is it geopolitical alignment, with Israel as a Western ally in a volatile region?
• Or is it something deeper: the need to turn the scapegoat into the savior?

Whatever the answer, the shift is real. From the stake to the altar, Jews have gone in the Christian imagination, not always in ways that reflect empathy or justice.

What began as centuries of persecution has become an era of sacralized political loyalty. This is not inherently bad, solidarity can be redemptive. But when that solidarity silences criticism, justifies occupation, and ignores human suffering, it becomes something else entirely.

Perhaps history’s most radical transformations do not come with revolutions, but with rewritings, and this rewriting of Christian-Jewish-Israeli relations may be among the most profound of them all.