The bond between the Republican Party and Israel was built over decades, beginning with the Reverend Billy Graham's relationship with President Richard Nixon, which brought evangelical politics into the White House. In the late 1970s, Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority mobilised conservative evangelicals into a potent Republican constituency, and Ronald Reagan later incorporated them into his conservative coalition. Israel became central to that identity, with many evangelicals viewing support for the Jewish state through a biblical lens.
Leaders such as televangelist John Hagee and Christians United for Israel later built an institutional network that translated religious conviction into political pressure. For Christian Zionists, support for Israel is tied to biblical prophecy, including end-times interpretations and the anticipated return of Jesus Christ, elevating it from a foreign-policy preference to a religious commitment.
Today's Republican leaders inherited that system. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has invoked biblical passages to portray US-Israel relations as more than a strategic partnership. Senator Ted Cruz has framed his support for Israel in explicitly Christian terms, while Senator Tom Cotton has pushed to replace "West Bank" with "Judea and Samaria" in federal terminology. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, now Trump's ambassador to Israel, defends Israeli settlements and rejects conventional territorial terminology.
However, President Trump, while strengthening the evangelical alliance by recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital and relocating the US embassy, has also introduced a competing force into Republican foreign policy: America First. His coalition includes voters sceptical of foreign entanglements and overseas military interventions, creating tension within the Republican consensus on Israel.