The Likud–Televangelist Pipeline

How Begin, Reagan, Falwell, Robertson, and Hagee helped turn biblical language into political power

There was a time when the relationship between Israel and American evangelical broadcasting was not yet a full-blown political system. Menachem Begin changed that. When Likud came to power in 1977, it didn’t merely inherit Israel’s American alliances, it widened them. Begin understood that the Religious Right in the United States was not just a theological audience. It was a voting bloc, a donor network, a media machine, and a pressure campaign waiting to be organized. Scholars and major press accounts have described Begin’s rise as a turning point in evangelical-Israeli relations, with Likud seeing conservative Christians as a large and largely untapped reservoir of political and financial support.

That’s the part many Americans still miss. This was never only about prophecy conferences, Bible verses, or sentimental talk about blessing Israel. It became a structure. Likud gave access, symbolism, legitimacy, and close contact with Israeli leadership. Evangelical broadcasters returned the favor with airtime, fundraising, mass-mail persuasion, grassroots mobilization, and relentless pressure on Washington whenever Israel faced criticism or demands for territorial compromise. The pipeline was not simply cash handed from one side to the other. It was more durable than that. It was a mutually reinforcing system of politics, publicity, travel, donor activation, and narrative control.

Jerry Falwell was one of the clearest early nodes in that system. The historical record is loaded with examples. The Washington Post reported that Begin was so pleased with Falwell’s pro-Israel activism that he gave him a Learjet in 1979. Christian Century and other historical accounts report that Falwell also received the Jabotinsky Award and that Begin treated him as a key American advocate for Israel’s cause. The message was plain enough: this was not ordinary diplomacy. An Israeli prime minister was cultivating a televangelist as a parallel channel of influence inside the United States.

The intimacy of that relationship becomes even clearer in the Osirak episode. After Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, Begin reportedly contacted Falwell to help explain the strike to the American public before he spoke with President Reagan. Whether one sees that as shrewd statecraft or something more cynical, the meaning is hard to miss: Falwell was not just a friendly preacher cheering from the sidelines. He was being used as a communications asset, a religious surrogate who could sell Israeli military action to millions of conservative Christians in the United States.

That is where the financial question has to be handled carefully and honestly. The strongest evidence is not that Likud simply funneled money straight into evangelical ministries in some crude, one-direction transfer. The stronger case is that Likud and allied Israeli institutions helped create the conditions for evangelical fundraising, donor enthusiasm, sponsored travel, charitable giving, and political activism to flow toward Israel. The relationship generated money, but it generated it through access, emotional buy-in, tours, projects, relief drives, aliyah support, settlement-friendly narratives, and a constant sense among American believers that giving to Israel was giving directly into God’s prophetic calendar.

Pat Robertson fit into that broader architecture. He was not identical to Falwell, but he occupied the same world: televangelism, mass communication, donor cultivation, and a deeply prophetic reading of the modern Israeli state. Robertson publicly argued that evangelical Christians support Israel because they see the Jewish state as part of biblical fulfillment. His media empire helped normalize the idea that standing with Israel was not merely a foreign-policy preference but a Christian obligation. Robertson’s ties to Israel were substantial enough that Israeli leaders publicly praised him for his support, and his influence was significant enough that when he crossed a line in 2006 by saying Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine punishment, Israeli officials temporarily froze relations with him before later softening after his apology. That episode revealed both sides of the alliance: strong attachment, but also the fact that the relationship was political enough to be managed like any other diplomatic asset.

Then came John Hagee, who represents the later and more organized phase of the same machine. Hagee was not Begin’s original bridge to American televangelism, but he became the heir to that entire model. According to reporting and profiles of his work, he has met with every Israeli prime minister since Begin, and his ministries have donated tens of millions of dollars for causes in Israel. With Christians United for Israel, the old televangelist-Israel relationship was institutionalized into a permanent lobbying and donor apparatus, complete with conferences, advocacy campaigns, fundraising, and organized pressure on elected officials. By the time Hagee’s movement matured, the pipeline was no longer informal. It was a standing political infrastructure.

The Reagan connection is what turns this from a story about religious broadcasting into a story about actual state power. Reagan welcomed the Religious Right into the Republican coalition, and that meant men like Falwell were no longer just outside agitators. They were close to the center of American conservative politics. Historical accounts note that Begin developed a unique relationship not only with evangelical leaders but also with Reagan himself, while Reagan’s public comments sometimes reflected an apocalyptic framework that resonated with Christian-Zionist audiences. One often-cited example is Reagan’s remark to AIPAC’s Tom Dine that he found himself wondering whether his generation might be the one to witness Armageddon.

Begin and Likud cultivated the televangelists, the televangelists mobilized the evangelical base, and Reagan-era conservatism brought that base into direct proximity with presidential power. There were still policy disputes, of course. Reagan and Begin clashed, especially over the AWACS sale to Saudi Arabia. But the broader alliance held because the deeper value of the relationship was not total policy agreement. It was long-term leverage. Israeli leaders had found a way to energize a large, disciplined, religiously motivated constituency inside the United States, and that constituency was increasingly intertwined with Republican electoral politics.

Likud’s genius was recognizing something earlier than many American observers did: if you can make foreign policy feel like Bible prophecy, then criticism becomes rebellion, negotiation becomes betrayal, and donations become obedience. That is why this relationship lasted. The formula was simple and potent. Wrap the modern state in covenant language. Present territorial disputes as sacred boundaries. Portray diplomatic pressure as an assault on God’s plan. Then hand the message to charismatic broadcasters with national reach and donor lists already built. What emerged was not just a pro-Israel movement. It was a self-feeding ecosystem in which theology stirred emotion, emotion drove donations, donations underwrote activism, activism shaped politics, and politics reinforced the theology all over again.

The tourism piece should not be overlooked either, because it shows how material the relationship became. Historical work on evangelical-Israeli ties notes that the Israeli Ministry of Tourism viewed evangelicals as a major market and source of revenue. Later Likud governments and associated actors leaned into that model even more, flying evangelical leaders to Israel, convening Christian advocacy councils, and building a political culture in which “Holy Land” travel was never just tourism. It was messaging and orientation. It was a curated encounter designed to turn pastors and broadcasters into ambassadors.

This is why the financial pipeline matters so much. It wasn’t merely about money changing hands in a narrow accounting sense. It was about building a channel through which money, influence, loyalty, votes, and spiritual legitimacy could all move together. Israeli leadership gained a bloc of American defenders who would rally against pressure campaigns, oppose land concessions, and frame Middle East politics in biblical terms. Evangelical leaders gained a cause that energized their base, deepened donor engagement, opened doors to world leaders, and gave their ministries prophetic urgency. Each side strengthened the other.

And that may be the most important point of all. Americans were told this was about faithfulness to Scripture. In practice, it also became a sophisticated political instrument. Begin and Likud helped create evangelical sympathy for Israel, and they recognized its strategic value and helped turn it into a working machine. Falwell broadcasted it, Robertson expanded it, and Reagan normalized its entry into national politics. Hagee, in turn, professionalized it. By then, what had begun as alignment had become infrastructure.

A harder way to put it is this: the alliance was sold to church people as devotion, but it operated like a lobbying network. It baptized geopolitics in biblical language, trained millions of Christians to see one nation’s hardline agenda as a sacred duty, and turned pulpits and television studios into auxiliary battlegrounds for a foreign-policy cause. Whether one cheers that or condemns it, it should at least be named plainly for what it was.