Video: US evangelical preacher says he’ll train 100k ‘Christians’ for Israel

Israel-fanatic US ‘Christian’ preacher Dr Mike Evans is a leading example of the religious ultra-right’s blind — uncaring is probably more accurate — devotion to the Israeli genocidal colonial project.

He has founded multiple pro-Israel groups and museums. Evans has written dozens of books, with Israel as the dominant theme. He has given awards to fascist presidents Donald Trump — at an event literally called “Night of Heroes” — and Jair Bolsonaro, as well as to genocide-denying Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, all for their services to Israel. He also appears to be as negatively obsessed with Muslims as he is positively obsessed with genocidal state.

Take for example, his book The Samson Option. The book’s synopsis on Goodreads.com features “Muslim terrorist” after “Muslim terrorist”:

An Islamic radical drives a Suburban loaded with explosives into the early morning drop-off line at a school in Denver.

In Chicago, another fanatical Muslim drives a gasoline truck into the Chicago Board of Trade building. Death and destruction rain down.

Terrorists crash small, explosive-laden airplanes into the airport in Atlanta, destroying two jumbo jets and the main terminal. All flights are grounded.

A nuclear bomb is exploded high above Washington, D.C. The entire East Coast power grid collapses. Everything is at a standstill.

As the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft notes, Evans turns to the apartheid state for guidance on his books:

Leaked emails reveal that, back in 2018, Evans sought help from Israeli officials on his new novel about an all-out war on Israel, masterminded by a rogues’ gallery of Iran, Hamas, ISIS, and, to a lesser extent, the media. The outline that Evans shared offers a unique look into the thinking of an informal Trump adviser, as well as the Israeli reserve colonel who edited the story (and seemingly received about $1,150 for his troubles).

The worldview depicted in the outline, which was never published, is bleak. Iran and Hamas sneak explosives and even Sarin gas canisters into children’s backpacks in order to provoke Israeli soldiers into attacking innocents. When their plan to destroy Israel goes sideways, Iranian officials try to instigate the apocalypse. At the end, our hero’s wife reminds him that all of this fighting is simply inevitable. “[T]hey hate us for who we are,” she intones. “As we are who we are, and they are who they are, things will always be this way.” (Writing in the margins, the Israeli colonel wonders if this may be “overly simplifying the situation.”)

Now Evans, who once boasted of erecting hundreds of billboards exhorting Trump to “Make Israel great”, has spoken to a Zionist audience, including Netanyahu, of his intention to train 100,000 ‘Christian ambassadors’ to ‘defend Israel’:

We’ll train these wonderful Christian evangelicals so that they can fulfill what I am doing for the state of Israel.

Netanyahu no doubt loves the idea, since he is already spending $100m on ‘geofencing’ to bombard Christians with pro-Israel propaganda when they go to church.

The so-called ‘Christian nationalism’ espoused by the strain of US evangelical obsessed with Israel and against Muslims has far more in common with nazism than with anything to do with Jesus. But that sickness is all too widespread in the US, even if there are many examples of US Christians who realise it and stand against it.

Those who encourage Israel’s crimes and land theft, or support it despite its racism and viciousness, are a disgrace to their religion and its founder.

Featured image via the Canary