BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Pete Hegseth cited a prayer largely invented by Quentin Tarantino for the movie Pulp Fiction to praise a rescue mission during the Iran war.
The defense secretary was speaking at a worship service at the Pentagon on Wednesday when he began echoing the “great vengeance and furious anger” monologue delivered by Samuel L. Jackson’s hitman character.
During the religious event, Hegseth led a prayer that he said was delivered to him by the lead mission planner of the rescue operation for two Air Force crew members shot down in Iran.
Hegseth said the prayer had been recited for the rescue team ahead of the operation and was entitled “CSAR 2517,” or “Combat Search and Rescue 2517,” which he said, “I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17.”
In Pulp Fiction, Jackson’s character, Jules Winnfield, quotes what he claims to be the Bible verse Ezekiel 25:17 before shooting someone dead. However, while some parts of the monologue reference the verse, most of it is fictional and was created for the movie.
It is the Pulp Fiction version of Ezekiel 25:17 that Hegseth seemingly cites, while also changing some words to suit its “CSAR 2517” title. A Public Witness first reported the link to the movie.
“The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherd the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children,” Hegseth said.
“And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother. And you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”
The actual Ezekiel 25:17 Bible verse ends with “I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.”
Everything else that Jackson’s character quotes in Pulp Fiction is invented for the movie, which Hegseth then cited in his prayer.
“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children,” Jackson’s character says.
“And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.”
This is not the first time that Hegseth has called for violence during a religious service at the Pentagon.
Last month, the defense secretary referenced a prayer he claimed was given to troops following the brazen capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January to bring him to New York to face “narcoterroism” charges.
“Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation,” Hegseth said in the March 25 prayer service. “Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the Pentagon for comment.
JUST be aware in this "christian" nationalist nation apostasy of the teachings of Jesus Christ ( the real Jesus Christ not the alt-jesus of "christian" nationalism ) is the norm. I guess that means those of us who believe in and try to practice Jesus's teachings like the Beatitudes are heathens. I can live with that! I love this Italian doctor's comments on the drumpf / trump-vance administration's and the gop / greed over people-republican party's attitude on American healthcare!
A prominent Italian doctor swiped at President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in social media posts praising the medical care that injured American skiing star Lindsey Vonn received in Italy after crashing out of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
Matteo Bassetti — the head of the Infectious Diseases Clinic at Policlinico San Martino University Hospital in Genoa and a former Yale University School of Medicine scholar — began his post on Instagram by sending Vonn his “best wishes for a speedy recovery” following her return to the United States.
See the post here.
But he then added a pointed dig at Trump and Kennedy, and the overall situation surrounding health care in the U.S.:
“Vonn was able to appreciate Italy’s extraordinary public health care system, which took care of her with three surgical procedures. In Italy, unlike in her country, we take care of everyone: rich or poor, VIPs or nobodies, Americans or Italians. If she gets the chance, she should explain to Trump and Kennedy Jr. what it means to take care of those who are ill.”
Bassetti shared the message in Italian with his 396,000 followers alongside a photograph of Vonn receiving treatment in a hospital in Italy.
In a later post, responding to criticism, Bassetti clarified that he “didn’t write that in America they only treat those who have money” but instead “wrote (and it’s quite a different thing) that in Italy we treat everyone, unlike in the USA, thanks to our extraordinary national health system.”
“Even if you have nothing and have no insurance policy whatsoever, not only do you get treated in an emergency, but also for elective procedures,” he continued. “I worked in the USA and I know very well, because I saw it with my own eyes, that certain surgical procedures and certain therapies (including those for HIV and cancer) are not performed or provided if you are not insured.”
Bassetti has criticized American health care on multiple previous occasions.
Earlier this week, he said that “thanks to the #antivax thinking of those who govern it,” the United States has become “Measles Country.”
“If we were an advanced country (from a health perspective), we would require Americans to be vaccinated before entering Italy,” he added.
The doctor also called out Joe Biden in 2024 when the then-president was pictured boarding Air Force One without a mask, despite having just tested positive for COVID-19.
THERE is nothing Christian about "christian" nationalism. It is based on apostasy of Christianity and promoters and practitioners are apostates. Jesus Christ warns of wolves in sheep's clothing in his Sermon on the Mount ( Matthew 7:15-20 ) "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits." He also warned of false prophets in his Olivet Discourse on the Mount of Olives ( Mark 13:5-7, 21-23 ) "And Jesus began to say to them, 'Take heed that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, I am he! and they will lead many astray. And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is not yet. […] And then if any one says to you, Look, here is the Christ! or Look, there he is! do not believe it. False christs and false prophets will arise and show signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. But take heed; I have told you all things beforehand'." and ( Matthew 24:4-5, 11, 23-26 ) "Take heed that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and they will lead many astray. […] And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. […] Then if any one says to you, Lo, here is the Christ! or There he is!, do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Lo, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, Lo, he is in the wilderness, do not go out; if they say, Lo, he is in the inner rooms, do not believe it."
The Devil whispers to the Antichrist; detail from Sermons and Deeds of the Antichrist, Luca Signorelli, 1501, Orvieto Cathedral.
Christian Nationalism’s Power Rests On a Simple Proposition: No Questions
Christian nationalists take for granted that God is on the side of the U.S. and that to be a “good” or “real” Christian, one must affirm this thinking. This assumption is the hinge upon which Christian nationalists’ entire worldview swings.
By
Dec 5, 2025
Over the past several months, the Department of Homeland Security has steadily released promotional videos recruiting Americans to join DHS agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement. These videos include clips of military agents loading into armored vehicles, bombs falling from planes, and overhead shots of barren cities. In September, the newly dubbed “Secretary of War,” Pete Hegseth, posted a video depicting similar military operations set to a dramatic, Marvel-like soundtrack.
In one DHS video meant to recruit people to work for ICE, the words of Isaiah 6:8 are read by a deep, growling voice as the prophet’s words flash across the screen: “And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me.’”
In Hegseth’s clip, military operations are set to a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer: As Hegseth recites Jesus’s words, images of soldiers, fighter jets, and missiles accompany the prayer: “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” As staff writer Missy Ryan noted for The Atlantic in October, what Hegseth and other Christian nationalists openly desire is to advance “an expansive, sometimes militant version of Christianity that is evident across all aspects of public life.”
These biblical invocations are both noteworthy and incredibly disturbing. As religion scholar and co-host of the podcast Straight White American Jesus, Brad Onishi, explained during an interview on MSNBC, what makes these ads so unsettling is that, “It’s not an ad that says ‘join up in a patriotic endeavor.’” But rather, according to Onishi, these ads are a way for DHS and ICE to say that people who join their ranks are “answering a call from God.” “And that is Christian nationalism in a nutshell,” Onishi concludes.
It is no secret that the Trump administration has increasingly appealed to Christian values and a “biblical worldview” to enact its policies and defend its decisions, equating Christian faithfulness to partisan loyalty. In doing this, the Trump administration has turned MAGA allegiance into a holy duty.
This system, which seems so cohesive for people within it, is often paradoxical and baffling to those outside of it—both Christian and non-Christian alike. In return, many have rightly questioned how MAGA Christians can use their faith to support ends that seem so antithetical to the life and ministry of Jesus—a nomadic teacher put to death by the Roman Empire for his message of liberation and love preached to those at the margins of society.
For some, the answer is that MAGA Christians are merely using the Christian tradition to bolster a political agenda; that they are not actually Christians. While I understand this argument, I don’t think it encapsulates the bigger picture of how MAGA Christians have been deeply formed to believe with absolute certainty that their expressions of faith, demonstrated in media like the DHS videos, are the true, singular form of Christianity.
In my own attempt to make sense of this ongoing phenomenon, I came across an unlikely but helpful conversation partner: Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In his 1969 book On Certainty, which was published eighteen years after his death, he offered us a helpful illustration to better understand this all-encompassing logic: a door hinge.
“Hinge propositions” are beliefs that provide a base framework for engaging the world. They are the “hinges” from which our entire worldview and social imagination swing.
To be sure, what Wittgenstein has in mind is not an entire system of belief. Rather, he is talking about more basic assumptions: If one wants a door to turn open, they take for granted that the hinges on the door will stay put. The well-known example that Wittgenstein uses is examining our hands that appear before our eyes. Rather than philosophically debating their existence, we take the knowledge that our hands are, in fact, real and ready to be used in our everyday lives as a given. If we could not trust that our hands exist, we would constantly need to renegotiate and question our relationship with a world that seems to appear plainly before us. Therefore, this metaphor seeks to explain how basic, unquestioned beliefs influence our ability to make sense of and navigate the world.
Using Wittgenstein’s metaphor, I think it’s useful to understand Christian nationalism as one gigantic hinge proposition. From Christian nationalists’ broadest sentiments of supremacy down to their beliefs about how churches should function, many Christian nationalists follow a vision of Western expansion, patriarchy, and authoritarianism without hesitation. For Christian nationalists, these ends are self-evident and necessary to maintain our ordinary life. But with this outlook, there are consequences: to question these beliefs would result in Christian nationalists having to reconsider, reorganize, or—to use a more contemporary term—“deconstruct” their entire matrix of rationality.
Christian nationalism functions as a gestalt. To reject or doubt the belief that there should be a militant version of Christianity that permeates all aspects of U.S. public life is to question the very nature and being of God—and our relationship to God, which is to say one’s salvation. Christian nationalists take for granted that God is on the side of the U.S. and that to be a “good” or “real” Christian, one must affirm this thinking. This assumption is the hinge upon which Christian nationalists’ entire worldview swings. To doubt or question these beliefs is akin to doubting Christianity itself. What is evident in this logic is Christian nationalism working as a single commitment, with each belief implying all of the others.
This, of course, is intentional. Onishi explains in his 2023 book Preparing for War that Christian nationalism is a cohesive, collective, and active community united by a shared vision of supremacy catalyzed through media (e.g., Fox News or Truth Social). The point of this cohesion is to bring the Christian nationalist vision of domination, nativist purity, and white supremacy to fruition. Onishi notes that for those who disagree with this vision of the country or this particular articulation of Christianity, it is not merely a matter of disagreement, but it is a matter of warfare. The hinge of Christian nationalism turns the neighbor across the street into an enemy to defeat.
Although On Certainty never engages directly with these themes, I believe Wittgenstein’s insights still offer us a helpful resolution by considering the relationship between doubt and knowledge. Wittgenstein argues that indubitability—that is, something being beyond doubt—is not an essential mark of knowledge. In other words, knowledge is not the absence of doubt.
Christian nationalists fear knowledge. This is why MAGA demands blind loyalty, absent from any doubt or questioning. Christian nationalism must function as a “hinge” because, once it is broken up and examined piece by piece, we soon find its irreconcilable errors and radical unalignment with the teachings and example of Jesus. When Trump is no longer the assumed messiah, he is quickly revealed to be a liar and lunatic. When God is no longer on the side of masked ICE officers assaulting ministers, teargassing civilians, and raiding churches, they can be seen as violent, state-sponsored terrorizers. When critiques of this administration from the media can no longer be falsely framed as Christian persecution or fake news, the depths of an authoritarian regime are revealed. When Christian faithfulness and loyalty to MAGA are separated, we can hear their references to ethnic purity and a national rebirth for what it is: fascism.
However, if we accept that it is doubt, not certainty, that accompanies genuine knowledge, then we can move in and through this world, recognizing that God’s desire for creation is not rigid dogmatism; it is love and liberation, humility and gentleness, community and Christlikeness. Christian nationalism may demand unwavering allegiance, but God welcomes our doubts.
Editor’s note: This essay was produced in partnership with The Narrative Project, an initiative of The Christian Century.
Amar D. Peterman is an Indian American scholar working at the intersection of faith and public life. He is the author of Becoming Neighbors: The Common Good Made Local. You can learn more about his work at amarpeterman.com.
THE "christian" nationalist, often the same as the "christian" zionist, are no different than the "christian" fascist and nazis of hitler's third reich. They are apostates of Christianity, openly rejecting and in fact working against the teachings of Jesus Christ, endorsing an alt-Jesus and a gospel of greed, violence, misogyny, racism, and hate. They are even so self righteous that they believe Christ can not return, as outlined in the Bible, mostly the New Testament, without their help. Nothing in these verses indicates that is so ( 10 Key Bible Verses on the Second Coming of Christ ).
WHICH CHRIST ARE YOU FOLLOWING?Supporting and even encouraging the genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by the Israeli government, the Israeli Defense Forces and the fascist zionist settlers on Muslim and Christian Palestinians ( some of whom are Americans ) in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem is deliberately acting against the teachings of Jesus Christ. Americans of all faiths and of no faith, Democrats, Republicans and Independents must demand our government stop financing and arming with weapons and ammunition Israel's campaign of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity on Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Please e mail your representatives and senators. I did, and my e mails are at the end of this post. This from Mother Jones.....
The Settlers’ Man in Washington
This past summer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made headlines when he falsely claimed at a Christian conference in Jerusalem that there was “no starvation in Gaza.” A less noted, but also telling, moment came after Netanyahu’s remarks, when Yossi Dagan, a leading advocate for Israeli ambitions to annex Palestinian territory, presented evangelical minister Paula White-Cain with a gift: a glass map of the occupied West Bank, etched with the locations of Christian holy sites.
“My friend,” exclaimed White-Cain, who coordinates President Donald Trump’s relationships with influential Christians. “It’s such an honor.”
His gesture was part of a pattern. During a March 2025 meeting in Washington, DC, Dagan gave White-Cain a mezuzah supposedly made from stones near the biblical altar of Joshua. “You are doing a mission from God,” Dagan told her. “You are saving the world with President Trump.”
“This land is ours, God gave it to us.”
Dagan presented a similar mezuzah to Mike Huckabee, an evangelical Christian who is US ambassador to Israel, when they toured holy sites in the West Bank.
Dagan’s courtship of White-Cain and Huckabee is part of a yearslong effort by the Israeli right to cultivate support from American evangelicals for Jewish settlers in the West Bank. The head of the Shomron Regional Council, which oversees dozens of settlements, Dagan has been aggressively lobbying the US to back the official annexation of the West Bank—a once fringe idea that is increasingly being pushed by key Israeli officials.
“He’s on a mission,” says Maya Zinshtein, who filmed Dagan lobbying US lawmakers in 2019 for her documentary ’Til Kingdom Come, which examines ties between evangelical Christians and right-wing Israelis. Zinshtein said that while she opposes Dagan’s efforts, she recognizes him as a “brilliant politician” who hammered his talking points in “meeting after meeting after meeting” in Washington.
Since Israel first occupied the West Bank during the Six-Day War in 1967, hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers have moved to the territory—relentlessly encroaching on the land that is home to around 3 million Palestinians. Some analysts argue the territory has already been de facto annexed by Israel. But no country, including the United States, has recognized the area as part of the state of Israel. The International Court of Justice stated in July that “Israel must immediately cease all new settlement activity” and return all West Bank land and property.
For Israeli extremists, the war in Gaza has become a pretext to expand settlements and further restrict the movement of Palestinians in the West Bank—an entirely separate territory. Israeli military operations and settler violence have displaced more than 40,000 West Bank residents this year, according to the United Nations, and could result in “mass ethnic cleansing.”
In a February 2025 interview with an Israeli podcaster, Dagan explained that he had spent months advocating for the US government to rescind Biden-era sanctions on settlers, which Trump did soon after taking office. One of the settlers freed from sanctions, Yinon Levi, was arrested by Israeli authorities in July in connection with the fatal shooting of Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen. Levi was subsequently released from jail and has not been charged with a crime.
A self-described “student” of the ideas of militant Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Dagan traces his commitment to annexation back to the Oslo peace process, which he says he protested as a seventh grader in the 1990s. A decade later, when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the evacuation of some Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Dagan was among activists who barricaded themselves in one of those outposts. “I remember this injustice,” he told the Jerusalem Post in 2020. “I have dedicated my life to ensuring that this never happens again.”
Dagan has found eager allies in the American religious right. In recent years, he has arranged West Bank visits for various US officials and luminaries, complete with stops at wineries and holy sites. Such visits have fostered connections to some of Trump’s most influential evangelical advisers, including Huckabee, White-Cain, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—Christian Zionists who link their religious faith to unyielding support for Israel.
As far back as 2016, Dagan was devoting time and resources to supporting Trump’s presidential campaigns. In 2024, he co-led a campaign called JVote, encouraging US citizens in Israel to vote for Trump.
Two weeks after Trump’s reelection, Dagan posted on Facebook that he had met with Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) and other lawmakers “to influence, to convince, to teach and also to pressure” for US recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank. In March 2025, he met with Massad Boulos—Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law—who serves as an adviser to Trump on the Middle East. In May, Jewish News Service reported that Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism was providing more than $800,000 for Dagan’s efforts to “fight attempts to delegitimize Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria”—the Israeli government’s name for the West Bank. This, one Israeli official said, made Dagan’s efforts an “official public diplomacy tool of the State of Israel.”
A US law called the Foreign Agents Registration Act—or FARA—requires most people engaged in lobbying or other influence activities on behalf of a foreign government to register with the Justice Department. Dagan has never registered under FARA.
“The lobbying and influence activities you have described do raise significant questions,” David Laufman, an attorney who previously oversaw FARA enforcement at the Department of Justice, told Mother Jones. Given Dagan’s work for an Israeli governmental entity, Laufman said the question of whether he must register likely turns on whether Dagan qualifies for an exemption for people formally accredited by the State Department as diplomatic or consular officers. But a State Department spokesperson said Dagan has not applied for diplomatic status.
Regardless, the legal details don’t appear to have slowed his lobbying campaign. He has repeatedly visited Mar-a-Lago, and he met with Huckabee at an Israel Heritage Foundation event in New York before Inauguration Day.
Much of Dagan’s work appears to be coordinated with Tony Perkins, head of the Christian-right Family Research Council. In July, Perkins reportedly helped arrange a meeting between Dagan and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who agreed to support legislation mandating that his state replace references in official documents to the “West Bank” with settlers’ preferred terminology: Judea and Samaria. “The State of Louisiana stands fully with Israel on this issue—and on anything you may need,” Landry declared. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mike Huckabee’s daughter, has already signed such a bill, and—at Dagan’s urging—Republicans in six other states are pushing comparable measures. (Dagan and Perkins did not respond to requests for comment.)
A similar effort is underway in Washington, DC. This past January, Dagan worked with Tenney to establish the congressional Friends of Judea and Samaria Caucus, urging Trump to back annexation. Tenney has said that Dagan first proposed the idea of a congressional caucus. Around that time, Tenney and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced legislation requiring the federal government to use “Judea and Samaria.”
Regardless, the legal details don’t appear to have slowed his lobbying campaign. He has repeatedly visited Mar-a-Lago, and he met with Huckabee at an Israel Heritage Foundation event in New York before Inauguration Day.
Much of Dagan’s work appears to be coordinated with Tony Perkins, head of the Christian-right Family Research Council. In July, Perkins reportedly helped arrange a meeting between Dagan and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who agreed to support legislation mandating that his state replace references in official documents to the “West Bank” with settlers’ preferred terminology: Judea and Samaria. “The State of Louisiana stands fully with Israel on this issue—and on anything you may need,” Landry declared. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mike Huckabee’s daughter, has already signed such a bill, and—at Dagan’s urging—Republicans in six other states are pushing comparable measures. (Dagan and Perkins did not respond to requests for comment.)
A similar effort is underway in Washington, DC. This past January, Dagan worked with Tenney to establish the congressional Friends of Judea and Samaria Caucus, urging Trump to back annexation. Tenney has said that Dagan first proposed the idea of a congressional caucus. Around that time, Tenney and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced legislation requiring the federal government to use “Judea and Samaria.”
“No more of this ‘West Bank’ business,” Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) said during a Perkins-organized event where Dagan spoke to 30 GOP lawmakers in DC. “This is a part of Israel.”
“Take a look at what this means for Israel to be able to have sovereignty,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) added, as a TV behind him displayed red heifers—animals that figure prominently in the biblical underpinnings for much of Christian Zionism.
For many Christian Zionists, support for Israel and annexation is linked to a belief that Jewish control of the region portends the second coming of Christ—along with the fiery death of anyone who doesn’t accept him as their savior. “They really believe that Jesus is coming back,” said journalist Sarah Posner, who has written extensively about American evangelicals. “They also believe that the Bible commands everyone, but especially Americans, to support Israel. And that means supporting the Israeli right.”
Dagan appears untroubled by the theological implications of evangelical fervor for annexation. He often tells Christian Zionists that settlers are fulfilling biblical prophecy about the restoration of the Holy Land. “God brings us, exactly like the prophecies told, to build,” Dagan said recently on Perkins’ podcast. “Right,” Perkins interjected. “It’s happening.”
Dagan sometimes cites a disputed interpretation of Genesis 12:3—that those who support Israel will be blessed and those who oppose Israel will be cursed. In July, Dagan laid his hand on Rep. Jodey Arrington’s (R-Texas) head and offered a blessing of his own. “The God that blessed Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph…He will bless you,” Dagan said. “Because you are really a true friend of [the] Nation of Israel…and especially the pioneers of Judea and Samaria, and help us with sovereignty of Judea and Samaria.”
Dagan has met numerous times with Larry Huch, a prominent Texas-based evangelical pastor who works directly with an Israeli state fundraising entity—Keren Hayesod, or the Foundation Fund—and frequently promotes Israeli interests to his millions of TV viewers. In February, Huch said Gaza “has to be leveled.” In April, he visited the occupied territories, telling Dagan and other settlers that he’d recently pressed Trump to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.
In May, Huch published footage that included a conversation he had with Dagan at an overlook in Peduel in the West Bank. Elsewhere in that video, Huch tells viewers that he works with the Israel Allies Foundation to “go into governments around the world and teach them politically, my job is spiritually, why to stand with Israel.” According to Huch: “One of the biggest selling points we have when we’re talking to government officials is how many of you as Christians all over the world are partnering with us, partnering with Israel…[to] bring Jewish people—fulfilling Bible prophecy—back to the nation of Israel.”
Zinshtein, the filmmaker, said that despite differences over scripture, right-wing Israelis like Dagan and evangelical leaders in America “are both gaining something from this bond, either political or spiritual.”
“It’s like marriage [in which] you’re not talking about your problems,” she said. “It can go on forever.”
And for Israelis, maintaining those ties to “a large, cohesive block of Americans who are Christian Zionists” helps ensure that the president will not impede the Netanyahu government’s actions in Gaza or the West Bank, Posner said.
This month, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich introduced a new plan to seize most of the West Bank. The settlers are once again relying on American evangelical support to help make it a reality.
“When I sit with members of Congress, senators, with ministers,” Dagan said in February, “I tell them first of all the truth—this land is ours, God gave it to us, according to our faith and also according to your faith, if you are Christian. It is written in the Bible.”
MY E MAILS TO REP SUBRAMANYAM D-VA 10TH, SEN WARNER D-VA AND SEN KAINE D-VA
Supporting and even encouraging the genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by the Israeli government, the Israeli Defense Forces and the fascist zionist settlers on Muslim and Christian Palestinians ( some of whom are Americans ) in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem is deliberately acting against the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is time for you to honor the demands of Americans of all faiths and of no faith, Democrats, Republicans and Independents for our government stop financing and arming with weapons and ammunition Israel's campaign of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity on Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel's actions are a mockery of Holocaust remembrance and hypocrisy of "Never Again". Stop American involvement in the slaughter, starvation and displacement of innocent Palestinians, to continue supporting it financially and materially is the same as committing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity yourself. Their blood is on your hands, can you live with that?
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