U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s staggering victory on Tuesday left many asking themselves what drove many Americans to support the former president at the polls. But in Israel, posters congratulating Trump had been printed and were already adorning buildings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
In a conversation with The Media Line, former Trump adviser Mike Evans stands out as a pioneer of Christian Zionism. Evans, who led the banner movement in the Jewish State, said that Trump’s views on Israel played a decisive role.
“Every Bible-believer in America believes that Israel is the Bible land,” Evans said. He cited chapter 12 of Genesis, in which God tells Abraham he will “bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse thee.”
“They were very worried. They knew Donald Trump would bless Israel, and they weren’t convinced that Kamala Harris would,” he said.
Evans, who is the founder of the Friends of Zion Heritage Center, which also houses the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, has devoted his career to evangelical Christian support for Israel.
He said that the war in Israel will likely come to a close by the time Trump takes office.
“Trump has no desire to be a wartime president,” he said. “He was adamantly against the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, and he was adamantly against the Ukraine war. So, I think that President Trump is basically sending a signal to the state of Israel, to [Prime Minister] Bibi Netanyahu, even though he’s not president right now, to get everything completed by January 20.”
“Netanyahu can finish the war by January, seeing as both Hezbollah and Hamas have been significantly weakened,” Evans said. But in order to do so, he continued, Israel will have to confront Iran.
“Israel cannot strike the nuclear reactors. I wrote three books on this,” Evans noted. “Number one, they’re hardened. Number two, they don’t even have the armaments that would destroy them completely. And unless they use low-yield nuclear, which they’ll not do, these are high-population cities.”
What Israel can do, he said, is collapse Iran’s economy by striking the country’s oil refineries and ports. “They’ll have no more money to fund Hamas, fund Hezbollah, or even make their own ballistic missiles against the state of Israel,” he noted.
If Israel wants to accomplish that before Trump takes office, time is short. But Evans said that Israel is “100%” ready to do so. “Israel has the cyber ability. They have the technology. They can knock it out,” he said.
Once Iran is bankrupt, the Iranian people will rise up against their leaders, Evans predicted. “Remember, the Shah was overthrown by an oil strike. You collapse, you bankrupt Iran, you've got 85 million people. Who are really upset about the living hell they've gone through and their country being hijacked.”
“Eighty-five percent of the population, which is 85 million, despise the mullahs,” he said. “They can overthrow those mullahs. The mullahs will not have money to even fund terror within their own country.”
Since Trump was elected, Iran has experienced an economic shockwave, Evans said, noting that Iranians have been drinking alcohol and throwing parties since the election despite official bans. “They are going against the mullahs, and the mullahs can’t do anything because there’s too many of them,” he said.
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Protests in Iran following the killing of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini bu authorities, 2022
(Photo: AFP)
“The window is open now. I believe Donald Trump will be extremely happy if Israel bankrupts Iran. Remember, this is the president who had the strongest sanctions,” Evans said. “If he bankrupts Iran and knocks them out, it’s going to be wonderful.”
More difficult than taking out Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, Evans said, is the matter of bringing the hostages back home. “I don’t believe for a second that Hamas has any intention of negotiating a resolution to this crisis using the hostages,” he said.
Evans said that eliminating the Iranian threat would allow Trump to facilitate peace between Israel and the Sunni world. Peace with Saudi Arabia is achievable within a year and would be the “jewel of the Abraham Accords,” the normalization deals between Israel and four Arab countries achieved during Trump’s first term.
Making peace between Israel and the Sunni world would be “a game changer for Israel,” he said. In such a world, Iran would no longer pose a threat to Israel, funding would dry up for Palestinian terrorism, and an international coalition would emerge that could temporarily rule Gaza, he said.
He noted that Saudi Arabia, which has been mentioned as a potential player in postwar Gaza, has “zero tolerance” for antisemitism.
“When I met with the crown prince, I found him astonishingly pro-Israel,” Evans said. “More pro-Israel than most Jewish people in America.”
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman even told Evans that his own mother was a Jew, he reported.
When asked about the continued plights of the UAE during the war, Evans noted that Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Abu Dhabi, also “can't say enough nice things about Israel.”
The positive relationship between Israel and the UAE is evident in Emirates Air and Fly Dubai’s continued service to Israel throughout the war.
Evans said that the Palestinian people have been exploited by Iran. “I believe that the Palestinians have been used as cannon fodder by the Persians who don’t want to die killing Jews. They want other people to die for them. So, they’ve gamed these people. They’ve gamed them in Lebanon. They gamed them here in Gaza. But all that’s going to stop. And when it stops, there’s an opportunity to reform, rebuild, reeducate,” he said.
He said that the October 7 attack was not a result of the Palestinians’ desire for a state but rather the “radical Islamic ideology” that Palestinians have been exposed to.
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Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the singing of the Abraham Accords at the White House, 2020
(Photo: Gettyimages)
“You can’t take people that believe in their hearts that Jews invented the diseases of the world, the wars of the world, and the deceit of Satan and expect them to be reeducated in a short process. It’s going to take time. It’s going to take patience,” Evans said. He noted that some “bad actors” will not be willing to be reeducated and will have to “get out of there.”
Eventually, peace can be achieved, but “it’s certainly not going to happen in a peace summit that is going to talk about land,” Evans said. “They still want to kill Jews.”
Evans described Netanyahu as “the most brilliant man on the planet.” “The only advice that I have for him is the advice that I’ve told him many times in the past: Put all of your faith in God and seek his strength and wisdom and power,” he said.
With God’s help, Evans said, Netanyahu might go down in history as “the 21st century Winston Churchill.”
Political differences, especially regarding Trump, mark some of the starkest differences between Jews in Israel and Jews in America. According to preliminary exit polls, about 79% of American Jews voted for Harris. Only about 13% of Israelis polled said they preferred Harris to Trump.
Evans suggested that American Jewish support for the Democratic party could be explained in part by the sense among American Jews that promoting tolerance might protect them from antisemitism.
He described the current relationship between Jewish and Christian Zionists as at an all-time high.
During Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s initial courtship of the Christian Zionist movement, many Israeli Jews were suspicious of Christians’ motives. “As the years went by, they started seeing [Christian Zionists] do good deeds and make sacrifices. And they thought, wow, they really care about us. And it’s not a hidden agenda. They really do care about us. And so this day is a brand-new day,” he said.
“The State of Israel now knows something about Christians. They know what a real Christian is,” he said. “And Mother Teresa said to me, real Christians can’t kill Jews. They have to love Jews. Because Jesus was Jewish. And love is not something you say. It’s something you do.”
It’s hard to question Evan’s love of the Jewish State. He jokingly recounted telling his wife that there was another woman in his life.
“She said, who? What?” he laughed. “I said, yes, her name is Israel. I’ve been with her over 200 times since we got married. … So, Israel is the love of my life, and I have to be with her always.”
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