Photo: Former Vice President Mike Pence (left) with CUFI founder John Hagee (via Flickr)

Since Israel’s 2023 war on Gaza began, American evangelical Christian leaders have been outspoken about their staunch support of Israel. In fact, right wing evangelicals “have long formed the backbone of the Republican Party’s support of Israel.” Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which claims to be the largest “pro-Israel” organization in the country, is one of the key engines of the Christian Zionist movement, which sees the state of Israel as instrumental for bringing about the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus Christ. For decades, the right-wing evangelical pastor who founded CUFI, John Hagee, has made headlines for his anti-Semitic, anti-LGBT, and racist beliefs. Recently, Hagee was invited to speak alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson at the March for Israel, a rally supporting the Israeli government’s continued siege and bombardment of Gaza.

As CUFI and the hateful ideology of Christian Zionism shifts from a fringe to a mainstream movement that contributes tens of millions of dollars to Israel, it is increasingly important to understand the network of donors propping up Hagee’s platform. Unfortunately, there is little transparency about CUFI’s funding because U.S. tax codes do not require religious charities to disclose finances publicly. Our research attempts to shed some light on the family foundations of ultra-wealthy donors and associations that awarded grants to CUFI in their 990 tax filings.

While Hagee remains the public face of CUFI, the organization is sustained by a deep network of donors financing and propping up the organization. Many of these wealthy donors and anonymous donor-advised funds have ties to anti-Muslim hate groups and a record of spewing Islamaphobic rhetoric.

At the time of this publication, more than 18,700 Palestinians, including 7,700 children, have been killed and 50,000 wounded by Israel’s horrific bombardment of Gaza. This humanitarian disaster has left most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents homeless and with little to no access to food, water, and basic medical care, in what UN experts are referring to as “a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.”

Over the last two months, people all over the world have organized and joined record-setting mass mobilizations demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire. In the U.S., the largest pro-Palestine rally in the country’s history brought an estimated 300,000 people together to demand a ceasefire in Washington, D.C. on November 4th, 2023. A little over a week later, the March for Israel drew scrutiny for inviting controversial right-wing evangelical pastor, John Hagee, to speak alongside pro-Israel Congressional leaders including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Christian fundamentalist House Speaker Mike Johnson. Since the beginning of the war, American evangelicals have been clear about their unequivocal support for Israel.

Hagee is a high-profile pastor and televangelist who founded Hagee Ministries and Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which claims to be “the largest pro-Israel organization in the U.S.” For decades, Hagee has been condemned for the anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, anti-LGBT, and racist rhetoric in his sermons. Senator John McCain rejected Hagee’s endorsement in 2008 after a sermon surfaced in which Hagee claimed Adolf Hilter was a “hunter sent by God” to kill Jews because “God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.” That same year, Hagee said in an interview that Hurricane Katrina was a punishment from God for hosting a gay pride parade, and was........

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