Questions Raised About Funding Source and Itinerary of Republican Lawmakers' Israel Trip
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Reps. Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) took an expense-paid trip to Israel in 2020 that was supposedly funded by a small nonprofit group, but the trip was not listed in the group's tax filings.
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The trip was arranged by Avi Abelow, a right-wing Israeli activist living in a West Bank settlement, and included meetings with far-right Israeli political and religious figures but no Palestinian leaders.
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Abelow and Johnson share an evangelical Christian Zionist worldview that believes Israel's expansion is necessary to fulfill "End Times" prophecy, though this entails negative outcomes for Jews.
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The alliance between Christian Zionists in the U.S. and far-right Israelis is politically expedient but premised on literal Jewish destruction as part of their eschatology.
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This belief has fueled antisemitism and cynical foreign policy decisions based on biblical rather than pragmatic reasoning about Israel and the Middle East.