A man named Brandt Burleson has written an interesting article for the Libertarian Institute. It is entitled, “I helped Israel Propagandize American Christians.”
Mr. Burleson, an American, worked for the government of Israel and served as the “Strategic Outreach Director” of the consulate general of Israel to the southwest United States. He spent over eight years, he says, “betraying my country on behalf of the Israeli government, using theology as a geopolitical tool.” He says that in the course of doing this, he lost his own personal faith in God and is now an atheist.
Here is his description of the theology he was peddling on behalf of Israel:
Premillennial dispensationalism is the Christian end-times belief that all true believers will be raptured away to Heaven ushering in a seven-year tribulation period under the reign of the antichrist, where those left behind will endure unspeakable suffering before the day of judgement and an eternity trapped in Hell.
It should be noted that Seventh-day Adventists are also premillennialists, meaning that we believe Christ’s second coming precedes the Millennium, but we do not believe in a secret rapture; rather, we believe in that Christ’s second coming will be a universally visible (Rev. 1:7), loud (1 Cor. 15:52) event in which the dead are raised (Mat. 28:30-31), and the saved are visibly taken to the skies to meet Jesus. Those who are not saved are killed by the brightness of the Lord’s coming. (2 Thes. 2:8; Isa. 66:15-16).
It should also be noted that the belief in eternal conscious torment is much more widespread than merely among dispensationalists. This is not really something that can be blamed solely on the dispensationalists.
Since “Israel” plays a central role in this apocalyptic fantasy, adherents of this view are required to foster unconditional support for the contemporary Israeli government which they view as the manifestation of biblical Israel. These adherents are in a very real sense rooting for Armageddon. Beliefs can be very powerful, and it doesn’t take a genius to grasp how this belief is a national security vulnerability of biblical proportions. One that has captured the mind of Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and countless others in our government.
The evidence for this capture is overwhelming and undeniable. Ambassador Huckabee has placed a great deal of his political career in the service of this belief system and has made no secret of his views. He has said, “I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria… There’s no such thing as an occupation.” Notice the use of the Biblical term “Judea and Samaria” rather than West Bank.
Ambassador Huckabee has even referenced Genesis 12:3 in his official remarks, stating “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse… I want to be on the blessing side, not the cursed side.” This is the same verse that Senator Cruz, attempting to cite a book that is allegedly fundamental to his vision of the world, couldn’t quite remember, when he was being dog walked in an interview with Tucker Carlson. This is the filter America’s foreign policy is being distorted through.
Over the course of my service to the Israeli government I utilized [Gen. 12:3] countless times, incorporating it into all sorts of strategic communications and remarks that the Consul General would deliver or that I would deliver on behalf of the Consulate at dozens of events. These events in Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas ranged from what were essentially pep rallies for Israel at mega-churches and speaking at the Sunday service, to Holocaust remembrance events, to appearances on Christian television networks like Daystar and Victory Channel, to pastors’ luncheons where leaders representing dozens of congregations would be in attendance to hear briefings from Israeli diplomats. Among the headliners was former Israeli Ambassador to the United States and current Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, who would explain why congregation leaders should support Israel and get their flock to support Israel by voting in elected officials who will unquestioningly do the bidding of the Israeli government.
I even planned a delegation of pastors to visit Israel and specifically identified prominent leaders who had not visited the country before to go on a government approved holy propaganda tour. One of these pastors sits on the board of the large Christian organization Promise Keepers and leads the Houston Mayor’s Ministerial Advisory Board.
The U.S. Pastors Council and the Consulate’s support of the far-right Holy Land Redemption Fund, “redeeming” land in the West Bank, might be the most troubling thing we were involved in. This group led by Motti Isaak acquires land in the West Bank under dubious circumstances to move more Israeli settlers in and change “facts on the ground.” We met with Isaak at the Consulate, helped to coordinate meetings between him and prominent pastors, and even did an online event with the group. One pastor I helped to connect to this fanatical settler project in the West Bank was elected to the City Council of Houston. Another was Kenneth Copeland; you might remember him as the pastor who unsuccessfully beseeched God to give him the power to literally blow COVID away. Copeland is worth an estimated $300 million at least, making him likely the richest pastor in the world. Motti Issak told me that Kenneth Copeland has been a great donor to the Holy Land Redemption Foundation since we introduced them.
Larry Huch, pastor of New Beginnings Church in DFW, is a rock-star in the Christian Zionist Movement. He once remarked, “If we lose Jerusalem—what I believe with all my heart—if we lose Jerusalem, we will delay the coming of the Messiah. That’s why the enemy in the spiritual world [Satan] wants to get rid of Jerusalem. Because whether you think he’s coming for the first time or the second time, what everybody knows is he’s coming to Jerusalem.”
Early on in my time at the Consulate I was traveling with Consul Daniel Agranov to one of these aforementioned pep rallies for Israel at New Beginnings church that was organized in partnership with the Israel Allies Foundation, a pro-Israel DC-based lobbying outfit. Consul Agranov, Pastor Huch, and Senator Cruz were all scheduled to speak. When riding in the car on the way to the church, I explained the premillennial dispensationalist theology that underpins much evangelical support for Israel to Consul Agranov. He responded “These people give me the f**king creeps. What happens when they go back to thinking their God doesn’t like us again?” This was about an hour before he would take the stage and say how grateful he was for Christian support while exclaiming “Israel prays for peace,” taken from the remarks I wrote. The last I heard, Daniel Agranov is still an Israeli diplomat.
Interesting article, and well worth reading the whole thing. But if you’d rather have it in podcast form, here is an Scott Horton interviewing Brandt Burleson:
UPDATE: Israel also pays for American pastors to visit Israel, and be directly propagandized about how great Israel is. A large group of about 1,000 American pastors visited Israel last year before Christmas. According to MSN.com:
More than 1,000 U.S. Christian pastors and influencers traveled to Israel this month becoming “the largest group of American Christian leaders to visit Israel since its founding.”
At the height of the Christmas season — one of the two most important celebrations for Christians of the year, the birth of Christ, the other being Easter which marks his death — these pastors were on mission paid for by the Israeli government “to provide training and prepare participants to serve as unofficial ambassadors for Israel in their communities,” Fox News reported.
Trip organizer Mike Evans is an author, a top evangelical ally of Donald Trump, longtime confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and founder of the Friends of Zion Heritage Center in Jerusalem. “For Christians, Israel is not just another country on the map. It is the cradle of our faith. The story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, King David, and Jesus starts here. If you cut Israel out of the Bible, you do not just edit a text, you undermine the foundations of Christian faith itself," the long-time, prominent Christian Zionist said in a press release about the trip.
Such Christian Zionists believe that the state of Israel fulfills biblical prophecy. Sometimes they say things like the people of Israel are "a special treasure above all the people on the face of the earth, that includes the United States of America" as Pastor John Hagee, leader of Christians United for Israel, exclaimed in a speech this summer, referring to scripture.
“This week we want Pastors to experience Israel first-hand and be reminded of these foundational truths,” Evans said of the trip, which would be, he said, giving these pastors and others “an immersive, state-level experience” that included meetings with Israeli officials, generals, intelligence leaders and President Isaac Herzog.The “mission” it would seem is just as critical to firming up support for the government’s military actions in Gaza and the West Bank as it is to affirming support for the religious integrity of the national project.
As such, evangelical participants on the sojourn wanted to talk about Israel in terms of perpetual victimhood. Tamryn Foley of Florida told Fox Digital, "more than half of the Palestinian population embraces Hamas’ ideology of radical Islam, which isn’t based on land for peace but on establishing an Islamic state and eradicating the Jewish state."
Foley . . . was part of the trip as an executive team member of the National Faith Advisory Board, founded by Paula White-Cain. When “Trump’s understanding of the need to support the Jewish state intensified in 2003, when he contacted Evangelist Paula White-Cain … they became quick friends and White-Cain introduced Trump to several other Evangelicals. Since then, she has served as his personal pastor — and these other Evangelicals, including (Mike) Evans, have been influencing the president," the Jerusalem Post reported in early 2020.
In May, a United Nations report detailed the plight of women and girls living in Gaza. “UN Women estimates that more than 28,000 women and girls have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war in October, 2023 — that is one woman and one girl on average killed every hour in attacks by Israeli forces,” the report noted. “Among those killed, thousands were mothers, leaving behind devastated children, families, and communities.” That estimate is from six months ago.
The official numbers, according to the Gazan Health Ministry, are over 70,000 killed since Oct. 7, 2023. Other estimates, which take into account undiscovered dead bodies under the 68 million tons of rubble in the Strip, are well over 100,000 Palestinians killed, most of whom are considered civilians, since the beginning of the war.
Defenders of Israel’s collective punishment, especially American evangelicals, contend that it is mere retaliation for the horrific October 7, attack on Israel by Hamas. According to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in September of last year, 64 percent of white Protestant evangelicals maintain that Israel is defending its interests and is justified in its military actions in Gaza, roughly double that of the overall American population (32%). It is also a far greater proportion than Americans of other faiths, including Catholics (34%), non-evangelical Protestants (31%), and far more than non-religious Americans (19%).
Some of the U.S. evangelical travelers to Israel last week conveyed stories to media about meeting Israeli October 7 survivors and witnessing their pain up close, creating a more intimate understanding of their plight.
There were no reports of the evangelical travelers also visiting Gaza or listening to harrowing stories of Palestinian survivors of Israel’s bombardments, the displacement of millions, and famine and disease conditions now exacerbated by flooding and the continued lack of shelter, food, and medicine. It simply does not appear to be part of the conversation, and to the degree that it ever is, it is almost always to defend Israel’s actions.
Responsible Statecraft’s Paul R. Pillar analyzed the one-sided nature of the conflict in late July. “The news stories emerging almost daily from Gaza are not about pitched battles between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas fighters,” he wrote. “They are mostly not about battles at all. Instead, they are about the latest large-scale killing by Israel of Gazans, mostly civilians, at a rate that has averaged about 150 deaths per day since the current round of carnage began in late 2023. Civilians are killed largely with airstrikes but also more recently through getting shot while seeking ever-scarcer food.”
In November, Responsible Statecraft’s Connor Echols reported that trip organizer Mike Evans once began writing a fictional novel that was edited by a paid Israeli reserve colonel “about an all-out war on Israel, masterminded by a rogues’ gallery of Iran, Hamas, ISIS, and, to a lesser extent, the media.” The book was never published. Its outline was described by Echols as “bleak” and he noted that “Evans goes to great lengths to blur the lines between Hamas members and civilians.”
Speaking on Israel's critics, Evans told Fox News Digital, "These devils that hate Jews hate Christians just as much. What is being said against the state of Israel is one hundred times worse than what the Nazis said on their party platform in 1920, and everyone is ignoring it.”
“They don’t realize how dangerous this is,” Evans added. Mike Evans’ Zionist missionaries also seem to ignore things. Big things. No matter how dangerous to life that has been.