Israel and U.S. Evangelicals

Andrew Sullivan describes the ties:

Nicely put. But I would not discount the religious themes underpinning this, which are very potent in the current GOP. Evangelicals view Israel and America as uniquely sacred entities, united in an eschatological struggle between good and evil. Each country is thereby exempted from the usual international laws and rules, because G-d himself has anointed both of them in a pre-ordained battle of existential power.
When Romney preposterously declares that Obama has thrown Israel under the bus, he is sending a message to evangelicals. Allegedly betraying Israel at this pre-apocalyptic hour is the work of Satan. Any partition of the chosen land is the goal of the anti-Christ - hence the incomprehension and shock at any mention of the 1967 borders. Just as the early Puritans saw their new land as a new Zion, so did the first Zionists in Israel. And you cannot rationally negotiate with these kinds of convictions. Alas, in Israel, the pre-existing population didn't die en masse by unwitting biological warfare. Hence the need, as Palin and Huckabee have urged, for a much more aggressive Jewish settlement of Judea and Samaria.

I sometimes feel like a conspiracy theorist as I chalk up right-wing support for Israel to crazy religious beliefs, but I think it is real.  I don't understand it at all, but it scares the bejesus out of me that people are actually wanting the end-of-days to arrive.  I just hope that Republicans and Jewish settlers drag each other down without hurting the rest of us.