Christian Zionist Discourse and US Support for Israel during the Gaza War, 2023-2025: A Constructivist-Securitisation Analysis

Abstract

This study examines how Christian Zionist ideas contributed to the public legitimation of United States support for Israel during the Gaza war from October 2023 to December 2025. It treats Christian Zionism as an influential religious-political discourse rather than as a complete explanation of US foreign policy. The study uses qualitative document analysis and theory-guided discourse analysis. A purposive corpus of official presidential and congressional texts, statements by US political figures, publications by Christians United for Israel, public-opinion evidence, and contextual reporting was coded for covenantal obligation, civilisational identity, existential threat, exceptional policy measures, political mobilisation, and humanitarian counter-frames.

Constructivism and securitisation theory guide the interpretation. Christian Zionist discourse repeatedly framed Israel as a moral and spiritual ally, represented the conflict through a binary of good and evil, and linked support for Israel to American security. Evangelical advocacy also connected religious language with concrete lobbying for military assistance. However, the corpus shows important limits: strategic arguments, bipartisan institutions, humanitarian language, and internal evangelical differences remained significant. Christian Zionism operated primarily as a legitimating and mobilising framework that reinforced existing strategic and partisan commitments. It did not independently determine policy. The persistence of US support for Israel is best understood through the interaction of religion, identity, security discourse, institutions, and material interests.