• DdCno1@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    The reason why I read your comment that way is because America wasn’t exactly an ardent supporter of Israel in its early days beyond recognizing it first, even going so far as to enforce an arms embargo against it. The UK also enforced this embargo. The most significant support out of Europe came from France, which had very strong ties with Israel, including in particular in regards to both nations’ atomic weapons programs. West Germany became a supporter of the young state starting in the early 1950s, when its Holocaust reparations became a major source of funding (and free imports of vital goods) for the government in Tel Aviv.

    American Evangelical support of Israel really only started to take off and become a force in American politics in the wake of the Six-Days war, when America, in order to counter Soviet influence in the region, began to back Israel directly. This was also when economic ties started to intensify. Evangelicals, while having voiced support of Zionism earlier (just like more moderate American Christians), more or less rode the coattails of this development.