Since October 7, 2023, Israel’s war on Gaza has resulted in more than 240,000 Palestinian casualties, including nearly 75,000 deaths, while displacing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes across the besieged enclave. Beyond the devastation in Gaza, Palestinian Christians report a sharp, alarming rise in violence across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, marking a volatile escalation in the region’s long-standing conflict.
Church leaders and analysts have documented an increase in settler attacks on Christian communities, ranging from the burning of property to physical intimidation. These incidents are increasingly viewed as an expression of Israeli ethno-nationalism. Observers note that settlers feel increasingly empowered, often employing thuggery to achieve their aims. These attacks, which include individual spitting incidents and broader harassment, are seen by many as a direct assault on the presence of the oldest Christian communities in the world.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dependence on far-right coalition partners has left him unwilling to challenge settler groups accused of these attacks. This political calculation has drawn growing attention in the United States, where outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and CNN have begun to document the plight of these communities. Long before these reports, however, social media footage showing Jewish extremists harassing clergy and pilgrims had already sparked significant public outrage.
The political fallout has reached the highest levels of American discourse. Commentators like Tucker Carlson and former Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene have begun to question Washington’s continued unconditional support for the Israeli government. Whether these criticisms signal a broader, structural shift within the traditionally pro-Israel Evangelical movement remains an open and highly debated question among political analysts.
Motti Inbari, a professor of Jewish Studies at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, believes the growing visibility of these attacks is creating a cumulative effect. “It’s all accumulating. I don’t think that one thing creates a change, but it’s accumulating, and it may result in some change in public opinion over time, and it started to be noticed that some Israelis are treating Christians in a way that is unacceptable,” Inbari explains. “It may cause Israel a lot of damage, absolutely,” he adds.
Inbari argues that extremist Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has a clear political incentive to fuel tensions in the occupied West Bank. The strategy relies on the hope that Palestinian retaliation to settler attacks will strengthen support for his hardline agenda among his base. “That’s the strategy of Ben-Gvir,” Inbari says. “He’s living from violence.”
Because Ben-Gvir serves as a critical member of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, Inbari asserts that the ultimate responsibility for failing to curb settler violence lies with the Israeli prime minister. “Netanyahu sees the violence on the street. Netanyahu sees the violence everywhere, and he’s not firing him and he’s not doing anything about it,” Inbari notes. “He’s letting it happen because Netanyahu benefits from it as well.”
According to Inbari, Netanyahu’s reliance on these far-right partners risks damaging Israel’s standing among American Christians as attacks on Palestinian Christians receive greater international attention. This is a significant concern for a government that has historically relied on the unwavering support of the American Evangelical community.
Recent polling suggests that support for Israel among American Evangelicals has softened, particularly among younger generations. Although Evangelicals have traditionally been among Israel’s strongest supporters—many believing the Jewish people have a biblical claim to the Holy Land based on their interpretation of scripture—Inbari says that consensus has begun to erode. A University of Maryland survey published last year found that sympathy for Israel had fallen significantly among this demographic.
That theological tradition, combined with the influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups, has helped make Evangelicals one of Israel’s most reliable constituencies in the United States. “For many Christian Zionists, support for Israel is rooted in a theological worldview often expressed through the belief that ‘God blesses those who bless Israel.’ Their faith is therefore tied to the very existence of Israel, making this relationship much harder to break,” says analyst Hamza Batu.
Batu emphasizes that the strategic importance of the Evangelical constituency is well understood by Israeli leadership, which has made a concerted effort not to lose it. “Whether it can weaken their broader support for Israel is a different and much deeper question that requires a serious theo-political analysis,” Batu says. He questions the threshold for change, noting, “This leaves us with a difficult question: if everything that has happened so far has still not produced a decisive break, what would?”
Despite the growing evidence of violence, many in the American public remain insulated from these realities. “So they won’t notice most of these developments,” Batu concludes, suggesting that the media ecosystem in the United States often filters out the specific complexities of the Christian experience in the Holy Land, potentially delaying any significant shift in the political landscape of the US-Israel relationship.
A University of Maryland survey published last year found that sympathy for Israel had fallen to 51 percent among older Evangelicals, while support among younger Evangelicals stood at just 24 percent, pointing to a growi
Many scholars trace American Christian Zionism to the influence of the 17th-century Puritans, whose reading of the Old Testament emphasised the biblical covenant between God and the Jewish people.
Their concept of nationalism excludes all who do not fit their definition of who belongs in a state they imagine as theirs alone,” Robert O Smith, an associate professor of Authentic Diversity, Justice, and Public Church at the Lutheran School of Theology, tells.
These attacks—both individual spitting attacks and assaults—and terrorist attacks on villages are extensions of longstanding patterns,” Smith says.
Videos of Jewish extremists assaulting Christian clergy in occupied East Jerusalem, alongside footage of an Israeli soldier vandalising a statue of Jesus Christ on the cross in the southern Lebanese border village of Debel, have drawn condemnation from prominent American commentators and politicians, particularly within Christian circles.
Evangelical youth turns against Israel
A University of Maryland survey published last year found that sympathy for Israel had fallen to 51 percent among older Evangelicals, while support among younger Evangelicals stood at just 24 percent, pointing to a growing generational divide.
There is a big generational divide,” Inbari observes.
“I can tell you that this generational divide is true for all Americans, not just evangelicals.
“The evangelical community is going through a generational dispute,” he says, arguing that younger evangelicals tend to hold more centrist political views, while older generations remain more conservative and firmly supportive of Israel.
Will Puritan America go against Israel?
The historical roots of that support run deep.
Smith draws a similar distinction between support for Netanyahu and support for Israel itself.
“Christian Zionist support for the State of Israel is based on wildly diverging interests.
They see it as an apocalyptic playground.