In the midst of war, hostage negotiations, and a global surge in antisemitism, more than one thousand evangelical pastors and Christian leaders from across the United States touched down in Israel this week for what organizers are calling the largest delegation of American Christian leaders to visit the Jewish state since its establishment in 1948. The Friends of Zion Ambassador Summit 2025, a weeklong program organized in cooperation with Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, aims to transform these participants into trained pro-Israel “ambassadors” who will carry Israel’s story back to tens of millions of evangelical supporters in America.
The delegation’s arrival comes at a moment when Israel faces coordinated attacks on multiple fronts—not just from Hamas terrorists in Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon, but from what Israeli officials describe as an ideological war being waged through media, academia, and international institutions. As Israel continues to wait for the return of hostages from Hamas captivity and grapples with the trauma of the October 7 massacre, these Christian leaders have chosen to stand with the Jewish state in its darkest hour.
When Israeli President Isaac Herzog addressed the delegation at the Friends of Zion Museum in central Jerusalem on Wednesday night, he thanked them “for your support and for your friendship. And it’s not taken for granted.” Herzog described Israel as standing “at the frontier of the clash of civilizations,” defending not just itself but “the free world” and “Europe” against enemies who “went and broke all rules possible” through “burning, abducting, raping, taking hostage, and killing mass murder.”
The president’s words echoed the biblical charge given to the children of Israel: “See, I have set the land before you; go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their offspring after them” (Deuteronomy 1:8). This divine mandate, recognized by evangelical Christians who revere the Hebrew Bible, forms the theological foundation for their unwavering support of the Jewish state.
Dr. Mike Evans, founder of the Friends of Zion Museum and organizer of the summit, has built his life’s work on the words of the late President Shimon Peres, who warned him that “the new wars of the 21st century are going to be ideological wars, media wars, economic wars, and proxy wars” and that a small country like Israel “is going to have to have friends.” The Friends of Zion ambassador program, Evans explained, is part of a “hundred-year plan” to recruit “ambassadors with an S, not one or two or five or 10.”
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, himself a former Arkansas governor and prominent evangelical voice, challenged the delegation to counter the lies about Israel being spread on college campuses and in international forums. He urged the pastors to bring their congregants to see Israeli hospitals and daily life firsthand, noting sarcastically that “if that’s apartheid, Israel is really, really bad at doing it.”
The emotional high point of the summit came when the delegation gathered at the Western Wall for a mass prayer for the peace of Jerusalem, broadcast live to tens of millions worldwide. Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Western Wall, recited Psalm 121, the same Shir HaMa’alot (Song of Ascents) that former hostage Omer Sam Tov sang in Hamas captivity every Friday to strengthen his spirit. Evans called the coincidence “a sign from God.” Participants received slips of paper bearing the names of those murdered on October 7 and placed them between the ancient stones while praying for the victims’ families.
Friends of Zion 2025 Summit (Photo via FOZ Facebook)
At the Nova music festival site near Kibbutz Re’im, the delegation heard from former hostages Emily Damari, Tal Shoham, Idan Alexander, Moran Stella Yanai, and Aviva and Keith Siegel. When Damari thanked “God, the soldiers, and President Trump,” the entire delegation rose in applause. Alexander, who arrived in IDF uniform, told the crowd he had requested to reenlist after his release because “the only way to respond to what the terrorists did to me and to the people of Israel was to bring back all the knowledge I had gained and to help achieve victory.”
Moran Stella Yanai, abducted from the Nova site, declared, “After two and a half years, I stand before the world to show that I chose life. I call myself a hero. I have won, and I celebrate my victory. The very fact that I am here is proof that we prevailed.”
Later at Mount Herzl, the delegation laid Israeli flags and flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers in what organizers described as the first ceremony of its kind. Ashira Greenberg, widow of Lt.-Col. Tomer Greenberg who fell in Gaza, shared that after her husband rescued twin babies from Kfar Aza, he told her that despite the death and battles they faced, the babies renewed his sense of mission. Pesi Gordon, widow of Naftali Gordon and sister of a Sbarro terror attack victim, told the crowd that Jewish history teaches what happens “when Israel does not have a state and does not have an army to defend it.”
Dr. Yacov Livne, the Foreign Ministry’s deputy director for public diplomacy, called the delegation “ambassadors of truth” and thanked them for coming “to the Holy Land in times of trouble.” Israel fights not only on physical fronts “in Gaza, Syria, Iran, and other places,” he explained, but also against “blood libels, daily attacks against us, against the state of Israel, just for being ourselves.” He drew a direct line from the 1975 UN resolution equating Zionism with racism to today’s “radical Islamic forces, the forces of jihad,” which seek to destroy Israel “as a first step of destroying Western civilization.”
As this unprecedented delegation completes its weeklong training and returns to America, they carry with them the stories of survivors, the grief of widows, and the resolve of a nation that refuses to be defeated. These one thousand Christian leaders will fan out across the United States to churches, communities, and campuses where Israel’s very right to exist is under assault. Their mission is clear: to be ambassadors of truth in an age of lies, to stand with Israel when much of the world turns away, and to fulfill the biblical promise that those who bless Israel will themselves be blessed.
