Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas, brought back more than just a souvenir picture of herself grinning with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from her trip to Israel earlier this month. Additionally, she increased domestic mistrust about her true intentions in the Middle East.
Despite Arkansas’s small Jewish and Arab population and, until recently, its lack of direct ties to Israel, Sanders is warming up to the country. The governor toured a $63 million Camden factory this week that will produce parts for Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. The state of Arkansas erased Palestinian claims to the area in April when she approved a law requiring state agencies to use Judea and Samaria rather than the West Bank in government publications. Despite the recent downgrade of Israeli creditworthiness and the associated dangers to taxpayers, Arkansas has invested $20 million in Israeli bonds since May, increasing the state’s total commitment to $55 million.
Sanders stated this week that the governor’s connections to Israel had little to do with her constituents or expanding the local economy, as some Arkansans appear to understand. Sanders is a Republican candidate for president in 2028, and her campaign is moving like clockwork. Recent keynote addresses in Iowa and South Carolina are considered early attempts to gauge the political climate, so domestic events are less significant than photo opportunities and international trips that could increase her profile.
Sanders’ statements and deeds about Israel could set her apart from other conservatives as she enters the national arena. As evangelical Christians and now as politicians hoping to increase their national prominence, the Huckabee-Sanders family’s political brand is centered on the Holy Land.
The U.S. Ambassador to Israel is Sanders’ father, former Governor Mike Huckabee. Additionally, it appears that Sanders is already using his successes in the position to support her campaign. Sanders’ ability to mainstream the faith-based militarism her father is advocating and claim a little amount of the credit for President Trump’s Middle East triumphs is a preview of how she will shape her public persona and exercise influence in Washington. Everyone ought to be aware of this, particularly in Arkansas, where we are being utilized as a test site.
Preaching to the choir
Among the approximately 47 million American evangelicals, Israel holds a special place in their hearts.Many of them think that Jews, not Palestinians, have a biblical right to the land and that Israel’s formation in 1948 fulfilled a biblical prophesy. Additionally, many think that there will be the Second Coming—possibly during our lifetimes. Since they comprise around one-third of the Republican voter base, their opinions count.
According to a poll, about one-third of American evangelicals now support Christian nationalist ideologies, a theological and political movement that seeks to reshape the United States as a Christian nation with laws based on Christian principles. These ideas threaten fundamental tenets of American democracy, such as religious freedom and the separation of church and state.
By allowing public funds to be used to cover church school tuition and endorsing a new state law that mandates the Ten Commandments be displayed in public classrooms, Sanders has undoubtedly contributed to the blurring of the boundaries between church and state in Arkansas. Less well known is the prominent role that former Governor Huckabee had in promoting and making money off of a solely biblical interpretation of Israel that is disconnected from the ongoing conflict over its borders and the significance of these locations to the Arab world.
Having guided tens of thousands of people on at least 100 private Christian tours of Israel’s sacred sites since the 1970s, the New Yorker reportedly said that Huckabee is “mad about Israel.” The former governor usually arranges an eight-night tour to Israel’s most sacred sites, which costs $5,850 per person and includes travel and accommodations in five-star hotels.
One may contend that Huckabee’s biblical visions were comparatively innocuous when he was only a right-wing pundit and tour guide for the Holy Land. However, Huckabee has always had a big voice among conservatives, and he has utilized it to disseminate radical viewpoints with practical geopolitical ramifications. Additionally, Huckabee has stated that there is no such thing as a Palestinian. Additionally, Huckabee’s tours are meticulously planned to guarantee that visitors do not come into contact with Palestinians or their lives under Israeli rule, according to reporting by The Intercept.
Evangelicals frequently believe that it is biblically required to preserve Israel. It was simpler to protect American evangelicals from the drawbacks of this viewpoint—namely, the realities of Palestinian life—prior to Israel’s war in Gaza. First-person reports of the conflict are now available on social media, which has altered the distribution of media coverage. There are American Jews who oppose the war and Netanyahu, as well as a sizable and expanding Arab population in the United States. Racist stereotypes that Palestinians are terrorists are much less likely to be believed by young people.
Many others also believe that this war has gone too far. In Gaza, at least two-thirds of the buildings are either destroyed or severely damaged. According to the UN, tens of thousands of Palestinians have perished in Gaza, with some estimates being far higher. Many of these deaths have been women and children.There is widespread famine in the region.
The gospel according to a text
The devastation seemed to have little effect on Huckabee or Sanders. Both don’t seem to be in favor of ending the conflict peacefully. Huckabee recently chastised Western friends for demanding a ceasefire and denounced the 100 countries that are now advocating for a two-state solution. Sanders has also failed to acknowledge the struggle for Palestinian statehood, calling the West Bank by its biblical names and accusing Palestinian statehood protesters of being pro-Hamas and supporting terrorism. The two would contend that Hamas is solely responsible for the conflict, which is a viewpoint that is becoming more and more out of line with the majority of the world.
Huckabee’s opinions on Israel appeared to shift toward an even more sinister form of faith-based militarism in July. Huckabee texted Donald Trump a text message on June 17 saying that Trump should listen to God alone when deciding whether to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites—not Congress, allies, or experts in international law. He continued by saying that Trump is perhaps the most influential president in history since God protected him from assassination.
Naturally, Trump took a screenshot of the phrase and shared it on Twitter, which caused it to become viral. Four days later, Trump unexpectedly halted diplomatic efforts and began strikes on Iran, which shook Middle Eastern leaders and prompted U.N. criticism. The fact that this sentence is still attached to the Sanders X chronology is no accident.
With hints of theocracy and Christian nationalism, Huckabee’s God book is a case study of dominant conservative religious language. It’s concerning how susceptible some of these people are to militarism and political violence motivated by gloomy apocalyptic worldviews, and how Huckabee and Sanders are prepared to support these ideas.
There is, however, another factor at work as well: Huckabee has developed contacts with Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders through his decades-long leadership of evangelical tours to Israel, positioning the evangelical community and himself as a trustworthy partner of Israel’s establishment. Huckabee’s desire for Israel to continue being open to Christian tourists is well known, and he stands to gain from an idealized Israel that is exempt from the Palestinian problem.
Borrowing dad s playbook
For Sanders, support for the God text her dad sent the president is also a political calculation. She requires the delivery of Trump’s MAGA followers and his endorsement. To those ends, Trump has dubbed his strikes on Iran s nuclear facilities as the12-day warto underscore his ability to, in his view, stop wars decisively. The ramping up of production of Iron Dome weaponry here in Arkansas, which Sanders claimshelped defend Israelin the 12-day war, links her to Trump while building up her own foreign policy bona fides.
At her Iowa speechin late July, meant to reintroduce her as a national political figure years after she left Trump s employ as press secretary during his first term, Sanders wove a careful thread, playing up her right-wing political wins in Arkansas and her love of being a mother. But what was most representative of the leader she wants to be was the way she united her belief in God, her support for Trump’s military campaigns, and her father’s theocratic warmaking into a single worldview.
As a Republican hopeful, Sanders could tout any number of her extremist policies, from the state stotal abortion banto its newly enactedpunitive prison sentences. Showing loyalty to Israel is an early political bet that white Christian evangelicals will remain steadfast in theirsupport for the Holy Land,even as evidence grows that consensus is fracturing.
Sanders and her dad both hold views on the Israel-Gaza war that are out of step with a growing segment of the American population. Criticism of Israel has blownopen even on the political rightin recent months, particularly after horrificimages of starving childrenin Gaza circulated worldwide. When the Israeli military bombed a Catholic church in Gazain late July, killing three people and injuring the priest, the rupture amongst conservatives opened further.
The evangelical narrative pushed by Huckabee and his ilk that the modern nation-state of Israel is divine and thus can do no wrong is increasingly difficult to uphold. Polling shows that only32% of Americans approve of Israel s military actions inGaza, and amajority supporta Palestinian state, including, incredibly, 41% of Republicans.
Criticism is now coming from unexpected corners of the conservative universe. Georgia House Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has called Israel s actions in Gazaa genocide,the first of her party to do so, and Steve Bannon, at least one prominent evangelical podcaster, and young MAGA diehardsare amongthose now critical of the war. Huckabee himself has expressed concern that theyounger generationof evangelicals is more critical of Israel.
Evangelical and conservative views of Israel are not fixed in stone. Between 2001 and 2018, Republican support for Israelleapt by 29 percentage points. The Huckabee family rode or arguably helped forge the wave of unfailing evangelical support for Israel. But the tide could turn again. Huckabee and Sanders seem content to invent new concepts of right and wrong and justify it by faith but their success in this endeavor all depends on evangelicals ignoring what they see in front of their own eyes.
Arkansans are being taken on a foreign crusade they didn t ask to go on. As one constituentput it on X: Arkansas doesn t give a f*ck about Israel. Just a few days ago, Sanderswas asked, Why are you using taxpayer dollars to fund genocide?, while leaving brunch in downtown Little Rock. She didn t answer.
A larger question is whether the rest of the country is willing to accept a politics that blurs the line between faith and state, and justifies war and starvation as God s will. If not, they d be wise to see Arkansas for what it is: the opening act of a campaign that could soon reach the whole nation.
Elizabeth L. Cline is a freelance writer and researcher. She holds a master s degree in Global Studies and International Relations and is a lecturer at Columbia University.
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