There was an aura of history-in-the-making at the President’s Residence on Monday, as incoming US Ambassador Mike Huckabee presented his diplomatic credentials to President Isaac Herzog.
“Usually, when a new ambassador arrives, I say to him or her, ‘Welcome to Israel,’” Herzog said. “To you, Mike, I say, ‘Welcome home, Mike, dear brother of Israel.’”
Huckabee’s appointment symbolizes the depth of the religious bond between the two countries. He is not only the highest-ranking American official to fill this position – a former governor and a candidate for US president. He is also a Baptist pastor who has made countless trips to Israel.
On the same day of Huckabee’s ceremony in Jerusalem, President Donald Trump hosted an Easter Egg Roll at the White House, where he declared, “We are bringing religion back to America,” noting that “it keeps our country together.”
Not only are the vast majority of Americans and Israelis believers, the two countries are also rooted in faith-based sister ideologies: the United States in Americanism, Israel in Zionism.
The American Revolution has been romanticized as a return to Zion. As a result, many towns and main streets in the United States bear Zionist names, such as New Canaan, New Galilee, New Zion, New Jerusalem, Mount Moriah, Bethel, and Shiloh.
Indeed, Americanism is a form of abstract Zionism. So much so that America’s Founding Fathers considered using Hebrew as the unifying language of the United States. James Madison, America’s fourth president, even learned Hebrew.
Overlooking the Huckabee ceremony was the bust of Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, which is placed by the entrance to the President’s Residence.
Herzl understood that Judaism, in his time, was no longer organic Judaism but reactionary to 2,000 years of European persecution: “We are what the ghetto made us,” he wrote. In Zionism, Herzl established a vehicle to transform Judaism: “Zionism is the return to Judaism even before the return to the land of the Jews,” he proclaimed.
However, the American and Zionist Judeo-Christian journey toward return stands in sharp contrast to the European journey in the opposite direction: from faith to secularism to atheism.
As a result, Americanism became the primary Western ideology that preserves monotheistic Christianity. As discussed in my 2022 book, Judaism 3.0, just as Zionism is the return to Judaism, for many, Americanism is the return to Christianity.
Ideological exodus from Europe
Herzl recognized that it would take time for the ideological aspect of Zionism to settle. He wrote: “There are those who do not understand us properly and believe that the goal of our effort is to return to our land. Our ideal goes further than that. Our ideal is the vision of eternal truth. It is an ideal that always moves forward. It is an ideal that is infinite.”
Indeed, both Americanism and Zionism were structured not merely as vehicles for immigration but as an ideological exodus from Europe and its oppressive, paralyzing dogmas. This includes Europe’s 2,300-year-old opposition to Jews and Judaism, which Herzl understood as chronic and evolving based on changing European and Jewish circumstances.
Indeed, this opposition is reaching new heights, funneled through the most relevant aspect of Judaism in our time: Zionism and the Jewish state (Judaism 3.0).
Last week, an estimated 93% of Israeli Jews partook in the religious ritual of the Passover Seder, recounting the biblical exodus from Egypt – physically, and ideologically. A high point in the Seder is the reminder that “In every generation, someone rises up to eradicate us.” Indeed, in our generation, the Jewish nation is facing a dual attack: a physical assault from Iran and its proxies, and an ideological assault from Europeanism and its proxies.
There is a rapidly expanding attempt to negate the idea of a Jewish state, and through it, the idea of Judaism. This, as discussed in my book The Assault on Judaism, is also a proxy for an assault on America.
It has both practical and ideological implications. For example, the Europe-backed International Criminal Court, which is preparing the groundwork for the mass arrest of Israeli Jews, is, as Secretary of State Rubio described, a “test run” for the arrest of US leaders and servicemen. It is also an attempt to challenge the US-led world order and shake the Judeo-Christian foundations of the United States.
Countering the assault on Judaism and Americanism
As discussed in my recent column, it is therefore imperative that President Trump secures a non-collaboration pledge from European countries that would neutralize the strategic threat from the ICC. He must also demand that Europe stops funding, fueling, and promoting Palestinian incitement against Israeli Jews, which lead to the spike in global antisemitism.
Such European disengagement would also pave the path for peace, allowing a shift from frameworks that perpetuate the conflict, such as “land for peace” or the “two-state solution,” toward win-win peace templates that benefit all people in the region, such as the Abraham Accords.
A few weeks ago, I presented my book to President Herzog and shared the impact it has been having. This was right after the president addressed the United Nations, calling the rise of antisemitism a “wake-up call to humanity.”
As in previous large-scale assaults on Judaism, much of humanity is choosing to remain asleep. That is one reason why Israelis, on the Left and Right alike, are grateful to President Trump for taking decisive actions to counter the rapidly expanding assault on Judaism – both the physical and the ideological assault.
On Passover, we are reminded not only that in every generation someone rises up to eradicate us, but also that God saves us. Perhaps in that spirit, Huckabee shared that his first official assignment as ambassador was to head to the Western Wall and place a handwritten note given to him by President Trump, carrying a prayer for the peace of Jerusalem.
The new ambassador told President Herzog: “I come to stand today with the State of Israel and with the Jewish people because I believe that it is not simply a geopolitical position but a divine position.”
The writer is author of a new book, The Assault on Judaism: The Existential Threat is Coming from the West. He is also the author of Judaism 3.0: Judaism’s Transformation to Zionism (Judaism-Zionism.com), and chairman of the Judaism 3.0 think tank. See his articles at EuropeAndJerusalem.com.