‘Greater Israel’: How Christian Zionism infiltrated US policy

A sermon becomes a map. A map becomes policy. And policy becomes land taken, homes emptied and borders redrawn.

‘Greater Israel’: How Christian Zionism Became Policy – a 22-minute Al Jazeera Originals documentary directed by Awad Joumaa – traces how a centuries-old biblical idea travelled from English fringe pulpits to the heart of US politics, and from prophecy into the machinery of modern power. Blending archival footage and AI-assisted visuals, the film explores a question that no longer belongs only to theologians or historians: what happens when a religious vision of territory is backed by votes, money, military infrastructure and state policy? In a megachurch in San Antonio, Texas, Pastor John Hagee reads the map aloud.

God, he says, promised the Jewish people “one-half of modern-day Egypt, all of Israel, all of Lebanon, all of Syria, all of Jordan, all of Kuwait, and three-fourths of Saudi Arabia”. Hagee is not a fringe preacher.