WASHINGTON: An intense and sustained Push by US evangelicals helped drive President Donald Trump?s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel capital and eventually relocate the US embassy there, activists said on Wednesday.
While Trump had long pledged to move the embassy, the Republican president?s conservative Christian advisers repeatedly pressed the case in regular meetings at the White House, the conservative activists said. ?I have no doubt that evangelicals played a meaningful role in this decision,?* said Johnnie Moore, a California pastor who serves as a spokesman for a council of leading evangelicals that advises the White House.
?I don?t believe it would have happened without them.? The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Many US evangelicals have expressed strong solidarity with conservatives in Israel and feel a connection rooted in the Bible to the Jewish state. Conservative Christians have long argued that formally recognizing Jerusalem, home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions, was long overdue following a 1995 congressional mandate to move the embassy from Tel Aviv.
In Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, they found their most sympathetic audience. Activists? efforts included an email campaign launched by the group My Faith Votes. The group is chaired by Mike Huckabee, the former Republican presidential candidate and father of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary.
12-08-2017, 08:20 AM
Push by evangelicals helped set stage for Trump decision on Jerusalem
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