Israel still has the support of American Evangelical Christians, but the Jewish state has lost the information war and needs to seriously invest its focus on the matter, longtime President Donald Trump ally Dr. Mike Evans told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
Israel had lost what Evans called the “ideological war,” which Hamas understood how to fight far better. While Gazan terrorist organizations couldn’t hope to best the IDF on the battlefield, they had learned how to use the media to attack Israel in another war dimension.
Evans gave the example of how Hamas could release figures, such as casualty reports, that were uncritically adopted by media outlets.
“Israel is going to have to focus on and prioritize the ideological war,” said the American-Christian Zionist leader. “It has been a banana republic when it comes to understanding how to use the media.”
Evangelical leaders were well-equipped and willing to help Israel in conveying its message to the Christians and Muslims around the world, but they had to cooperate with them.
Evans said that the Evangelical community still had “rock solid” support for Israel, but the anti-Israel sentiment developing among some Christian factions was an issue that needed to be addressed.
He had discussed the problem with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling it a “major problem.”
American youth first bought into social justice ideologies and narratives and now into anti-Israel activism, with Evans noting that much of it was engendered by the manipulation of universities and social media by authoritarian countries.
Evans said that there was a reason to be concerned by “crazies” like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Candace Owens, and Tucker Carlson, who claim to be MAGA (Trump movement Make America Great Again), but focus on “Antisemitic rage against Israel.”
Evans also cautioned Israel about the limitations of diplomacy with Hamas. The Trump peace plan had so far been immensely successful in getting back the hostages abducted by the terror organization – a feat he said no one besides Trump could have achieved.
Yet Evans said that it was “extremely naive” to expect that a “demon-possessed” terrorist organization would comply with the next phase of the peace plan, which would include its disarmament.
Rather than disarm, there was a “nightmare” in Gaza with Hamas “assassinating everyone they consider to be a collaborator.”
“They only have one business, and that’s the business of terror – and they don’t want it shut down,” said Evans.
Evans explained that the US would not be going into Gaza
Disarmament would have to be enforced, but it was unclear who would remove this obstacle to the peace plan. Evans explained that the US would not be going into Gaza, and the United Nations could not be trusted, given its failures of peacekeeping groups like UNIFIL in Lebanon.
He said that the Muslim leaders involved in the plan had related that they did not want to be put in a position in which they would kill other Muslims, which would put a target on their backs and could cause their subjects to turn on them.
Evans noted that Trump had worked miracles before, and that more could happen – but it would take nothing less than a miracle to get Hamas to cooperate.