Dr. Michael D. Evans, one of the most prominent pro-Israel lobbyists in the world, believes that when it comes to changing people's perception of Israel and the Jews, smart use of media resources is key.
Opening hearts and changing minds, especially with respect to millennials, cannot be left solely to traditional means. It has to involve the media and cyber abilities, he told Israel Hayom.
Evans, who routinely rubs elbows with world leaders, American presidents, and top Israeli officials, is the founder of the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, a nonprofit organization that aims to serve as a platform for fighting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement and anti-Semitism.
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The museum is home to an impressive pro-Israel multimedia exhibit and last week, it inducted a state-of-the-art international media center dedicated to helping Israel's public diplomacy efforts.
Still, it is safe to assume that the vast majority of Israelis have never heard of Evans, nor have they heard of John Hagee, founder and chairman of the Christian-Zionist organization Christians United for Israel.
But Evans's Facebook page, "Jerusalem Prayer Team," is nearing 67 million followers who receive pro-Israel messages on a daily basis. Hagee is a media powerhouse in his own right: His televangelist message is broadcast in the United States and elsewhere via hundreds of TV and radio stations around the world.
Evans and Hagee are not alone, the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the political echelon as a whole have, for decades, had something of a blind spot with regard to Evangelical Christians' support for the Jewish state.
This community is hundreds of millions strong and spans North and South America, Africa, and Asia but Israeli governments began fostering ties with evangelical communities only a few years ago.
Perhaps the most important step taken has been reaching out to the international evangelical media, which features stories about Israel on a daily basis. This enterprise includes numerous TV and radio channels, websites, newspapers, magazines and, course, social media pages that span the globe, like the UK-based God-TV, or the California-based Trinity Broadcasting Network, which is the world's largest religious television network. TBN and Texas-based Daystar television network alone reach 200 million US households between them.
Huge potential
Recent studies show that one in three Americans consumes religious media on television, radio and the internet on a regular and long-term basis. According to Politico magazine, the major religious television networks reach around 2 billion people worldwide – the same as CNN.
The important aspect here is that in the United States, religious media audiences include those who are not church-goers. This includes Democrats, who in recent years have been giving Israel the cold shoulder.
Overall, about a third of Americans are affiliated with the Evangelical Church. They are largely responsible for Donald Trump's election to the White House and it is more than likely that they will determine whether he is elected again in 2020.
Israel is among their top priorities and it is the Christian media that keeps them abreast of local developments. These media outlets tend to underscore the Old Testament, meaning scripture lauding Jews as the chosen people.
Naturally, the content is mainly religious, but between the sermons and preachers Israel is mentioned in the context of current affairs, with journalists and broadcasters who identify with the message of said channels providing the information.
Veteran Government Press Office Director Nitzan Chen, who dared embrace evangelical media long ago, has no doubt that the move has paid off.
"Israel's public diplomacy strategy is to reach what is called the middle 80%. If 10% (of the people) are your supporters, and 10% are your detractors, then the 80% in the middle is neutral and have no opinion on the regional conflict. We don't want them to be exposed to Israel through the conflict but through positive contexts and that's exactly what the Christian media does. These soft content of connecting with Israel through the Bible speaks to them."
GPO surveys show beyond doubt that Christian media is highly effective, he said, stressing that this is a global phenomenon, including in countries where the majority is not Christian, such as China and Japan.
"The use of Christian media for public diplomacy purposes has proved itself in times of crisis, such as during war, a military campaign, or diplomatic calamity," he said. "We keep in constant contact with their public opinion leaders, delivering content and receiving feedback. There is no doubt about the effectiveness of these channels."
Harness the power of the media
Speaking with Israel Hayom, Evans said his mission is to fight ignorance and what he called the "poisoning of minds and hearts" against Jews. He and his evangelical counterparts, he stressed, are not part of any conspiracy to convert Jews into Christianity.
If anything, he laments the fact that for year, Jews and the State of Israel didn't know how to harness the evangelical power to their benefit.
"There was a reluctance, they thought, 'These Christians are crazy," he said, again stressing that he aspires to see the influence evangelicals wield work in Israel's favor and toward the elimination of anti-Semitism. "I have no other hidden agenda," he asserted.
In the four decades in which he has been active, Evans has written 800 articles and published 98 books. He has worked vis-à-vis churches around the world and with prime ministers, ministers and Knesset members. The Age of Internet and with it the emergence of social media has provided him with an inexhaustible platform,
"By the end of 2020, we'll have 100 million followers on social media and not just in the US. There are a billion evangelicals worldwide. In Saudi Arabia, for example, I have 75,000 followers, and in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, there are 50 million [followers]."
The new media center in the Friends of Zion Museum includes a giant, state-of-the-art TV studio, that will be made available to any representative of the media who shares the message of inclusion, regardless of whether they are Jewish. The museum is already frequented by senior state officials, past and present, and from now on, journalists, ambassadors, leaders, pastors or anyone else others can broadcast from its studio to audiences anywhere in the world.
The studio was unveiled as part of the third annual Christian Media Summit in Jerusalem, hosted by the GPO and the Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Ministry.
Some 150 prominent journalists and broadcasters from Christian media outlets were invited to a four-day tour of Israel, which included meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin.
One of the focal points of the summit was the Golan Heights, in light of Trump's recognition of Israel's sovereignty over the area. Mainstream media highlighted the diplomatic and geopolitical aspects of this move, while the Christian media focused on the Biblical connotations.
Ratings aren't everything
Dr. Laurie Cardoza-Moore, hosts of "Focus on Israel," which is broadcast on TBN, CBN, Daystar, and GOD TV, has no doubt that the content she presents is far more relevant, popular and practical than what mainstream media airs.
Christian media can potentially reach 2 billion people around the world, says Cardoza-Moore, who is also the founder and president of Proclaiming Justice to The Nations and Special Envoy to the UN for the World Council of Independent Christian Churches.
"We are not measured by conventional ratings because it is a satellite broadcast, but we can see how many countries and places tuned in," she explained.
These media's mission "is to educate Christians about the responsibility they have for the chosen people; to fight anti-Semitism, which unfortunately has been a key part of the church for centuries; and to warn that if we don't, it could reappear in every generation. So we talk about the Holocaust and BDS and we encourage people to take a moral action for Israel."
And what about mainstream media? "People are fed up with it," she asserted.
Mainstream media suffer from a steady decrease in viewership while the power of Christian media in only increasing, she said. "I keep telling people, 'If you want more viewers, feature evangelical content. That's what the public wants to hear.' True, we broadcast for a Christian audience, but others are also tuning in."
