Roughly 3,000 Christian leaders and activists filled a ballroom in National Harbor, Maryland, this week for the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) summit, arriving at a moment when polling shows American support for the Jewish state eroding among younger voters. Sandra Hagee Parker, chairwoman of the CUFI Action Fund, used the platform to draw a hard line: a Christian cannot reject Zionism and still claim to believe the Bible.
Pastor John Hagee, CUFI’s chairman and Parker’s father, told the summit crowd on Monday night that the American commitment to Israel is not up for negotiation. “The question before us concerning Israel is not Republican or Democrat. It’s not red state or blue state. It’s not left or right. It’s a matter of right and wrong,” Hagee said. “Christian support for Israel is not a political fashion. It’s a biblical conviction.”
Parker told JNS that CUFI’s years of warnings about rising antisemitism have been vindicated, not exaggerated. “Everybody has been saying since we started that we don’t need this organization, because antisemitism doesn’t exist,” she said. “Noah did not wait for the flood in order to build the ark.” She added: “We have not been surprised. Our surprise is that people are surprised.”
Parker’s position rests on a specific reading of Genesis. God’s covenant with Abraham states: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). For Parker and CUFI, this verse is not poetry. It is a binding condition attached to national fate, and it explains why she treats support for Israel as inseparable from Christian identity itself.
That conviction shaped her response when asked, in the debut episode of i24NEWS’s new program “American View,” whether a Christian can also be anti-Zionist. Host Mike Wagenheim, the network’s Senior US Correspondent, pressed her on declining support for Israel among younger evangelicals and progressive Christians despite years of outreach from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Parker acknowledged the generational shift but rejected any theological cover for it. “How people choose to identify themselves is their business, but you cannot be a Christian and anti-Zionist,” she said, arguing that the position requires rejecting “large sections of the Bible.”
Parker named commentator Tucker Carlson directly, telling JNS his invocation of Christian identity while criticizing Israel amounts to a hijacking of the faith. “When Tucker Carlson uses the words ‘as a Christian,’ that offends me,” she said. “He’s usurping the label of our religion in order to legitimize his Jew-hatred.” She was unequivocal: “If you believe what Tucker Carlson says, you’re not a Christian.”
Parker paired the theological argument with a security case, insisting the two are not in tension. Asked on i24NEWS whether her position holds regardless of a viewer’s faith or politics, she said: “If you care about our security, the rational thing to do is to stand with our ally Israel.” She extended that logic to CUFI’s legislative record, citing the organization’s role in passing a law that bars the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey due to Turkey’s relationship with Russia. “Turkey cannot get F-35s as long as they are so super chummy with Russia,” she said. “I don’t speak for the president. If they want to court favor by saying these people are friendly, what matters is that it’s against the law.”
On the sensitive question of Christians who report discrimination or assault in Israel, and Ambassador Mike Huckabee’s past criticism of Israeli authorities over such incidents, Parker declined to second-guess Jerusalem. “No country is perfect. It’s not my job to tell Israel what to do,” she said. “Ambassador Huckabee is in a position to signal messaging from our nation to the nation of Israel. My job is to make sure my country doesn’t do anything to create daylight between the US and the nation of Israel.”
Parker also addressed the ongoing standoff with Iran, telling JNS that CUFI’s members raised objections to the memorandum of understanding President Trump signed with Tehran well before Iran began firing on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, an escalation that triggered US retaliatory strikes and the reimposition of oil sanctions. “We’re going to call balls and strikes fairly, no matter who’s at bat,” she said, drawing a comparison to CUFI’s objections to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “If we were really upset in 2015 about the fact that an agreement was signed without congressional approval that lifted sanctions and gave Iran access to $30 billion, then equally we’re going to take umbrage with the fact that there may be an agreement signed that potentially gives Iran access to $300 billion.” She credited Trump’s approach to the region as earning CUFI’s patience regardless of the outcome: “President Trump has earned that with respect to how forceful he has been in the region and his willingness to do what other administrations have not in terms of confronting Iran directly.”
Parker closed her JNS interview with a warning framed in explicitly religious terms. “If you want to hate Israel and the Jewish people, may God have mercy on your soul,” she said. “But if you care about America, if you care about national security and if you care about remaining safe and remaining strong, then rationally you should continue to stand with our only ally in the region that’s fighting our shared enemies and defending our shared values.”
Since October 7, Parker told i24NEWS, CUFI’s membership has grown, particularly among young people, a trend she pointed to as evidence that the movement’s core is holding even as the broader political landscape shifts. The blessing promised to Abraham was never conditioned on popularity. Sandra Hagee Parker’s message to Washington this week was that it isn’t conditioned on the calendar either.
