The Republican consensus on Israel is starting to fracture

The Republican Party’s powerful alliance with Israel — repeatedly reaffirmed during President Donald Trump’s second term — is rooted in conservative Christianity’s rise as a political force more than half a century ago.The Reverend Billy Graham’s relationship with President Richard Nixon helped bring evangelical politics into the White House. Graham later regretted his political entanglement, particularly after Watergate, but the opening remained. In the late 1970s, Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority mobilised conservative evangelicals into a potent Republican constituency that Ronald Reagan incorporated into his conservative coalition. Israel became increasingly central to that identity, with many evangelicals viewing support for the Jewish state through a biblical rather than purely strategic lens. Leaders such as televangelist John Hagee and Christians United for Israel later built an institutional network that translated religious conviction into political pressure. What began as evangelical access to Republican presidents became a durable political infrastructure.For Christian Zionists, this alliance is about more than religious affinity. Many view Israel as central to biblical pr...