Comment by trilbyglens

There's also a lot of wacky christian folklore that is very popular in evangelical America that has to do with Israel being involved in the "end days". Some nutjobs feel that a strong Israeli state will hasten the rapture or some nonsense like that. There are a good number of those folk in elected positions, but also the evangelical crowd is inordinately influential in US politics, so it weasels it's way into many different facets of policy making. It's just one aspect of a complex picture though.