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America's Christian Zionists take Israel by storm
U.S. evangelical Christians have become influential supporters of the Jewish state

HERZLIYA, Israel -- Christian evangelist Pat Robertson had them in the palm of his hand.

No matter that his audience wasn't predominantly Christian. When the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network culminated his give-no-ground speech to the elite of Israel's political and military establishment with the ringing declaration, "Be strong! Be strong!" many of his listeners jumped to their feet to give him a boisterous round of applause.

The rapturous response to Robertson in Israel last month is just one example of how a large and growing group of conservative American Christians has entered the Jewish state's political scene with startling vigor, even as the Holy Land's indigenous Arab Christian communities wither because of violence and a dying economy.

Calling themselves Christian Zionists, the evangelicals are increasingly viewed as a political lifeline by influential Israelis who are eager for allies to fight what they see as a rising global tide of enmity aimed at Israel and to blunt suggestions that Israel is the main culprit in the Israeli-Palestinian morass.

They provide not only moral support but also substantial funds to Israel's sputtering economy, and they've proven their political clout in the Bush White House.

Fueling the movement's growth is the belief that a great religious struggle is convulsing the world, one in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main, but not only, battleground.

At stake, Robertson and other Christian Zionists have said, is who has the greater god: Jews and Christians on the one hand, or Muslims on the other. ...