1,000 Christian Zionist Pastors Visit Israel on Trip Funded by the Israeli Foreign Ministry
The summit comes as Israel expands outreach to U.S. churches, including a multimillion-dollar digital campaign recently disclosed in a federal filing.
TEL AVIV — More than 1,000 American Christian Zionist pastors and influencers spent the past week in Israel on an all-expenses-paid trip funded by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Haaretz reported on Tuesday. Organizers framed the visit as an unprecedented effort to mobilize evangelical support for Israel amid declining U.S. public backing.
“This is the first time in history that the state of Israel has officially partnered with 1,000 strategic pastors to commission them as ambassadors to combat antisemitism and reach the youth of their generation,” said Mike Evans, an evangelical leader involved in the summit. Evans told CBN News that Israel is “losing” an ideological battle and increasingly relies on U.S. evangelicals to defend its political positions.
Speakers at the event—held partly at the Shiloh archaeological site in the occupied West Bank—included former Arkansas governor and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. Evans used his remarks to criticize recent statements from Vice President JD Vance and former President Donald Trump opposing Israeli annexation of the West Bank, which he referred to as “Judea and Samaria.”
The summit comes as Israel expands outreach to U.S. churches, including a multimillion-dollar digital campaign recently disclosed in a federal filing. The event concluded with Huckabee commissioning attendees as “ambassadors” for Israel after a speech from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Earlier this month, the UOJ reported that Israeli settlers attacked a Christian village in Palestine as it was holding its annual Christmas market.
