In early November, a {photograph} of 4 white males in cowboy hats at JFK airport was uploaded to social media with the caption, “These cowboys from Arkansas and Montana had been at JFK right now on their method to assist out on the farms in Israel. They don’t seem to be Jewish.” By the point the cowboys landed in Tel Aviv, a Jerusalem Put up commentator declared, “they had been already a social media sensation”.

Certainly, since then they’ve netted 1000’s of likes and feedback comparable to “God bless Israel! I’ll at all times stand along with her” and “The Jewish persons are so grateful to have buddies.” Israeli and American media shops have additionally celebrated the cowboys by way of interviews and updates about their work and time in Har Bracha, a Jewish settlement in “Judea and Samaria” – the time period for the West Financial institution utilized by those that imagine the land belongs to the Jewish folks.

But the cowboys are additionally a conduit to understanding a basic likeness between white American and Jewish Israeli society, specifically their settler initiatives intent on the erasure of dehumanised “natives”.

The lads volunteer by way of the Christian Zionist organisation HaYovel, or “The Jubilee”; in accordance with the organisation’s web site, this biblical time period “appears to be like ahead to a day of worldwide redemption and a totally restored land of Israel.” As Christian Zionists, the cowboys and their sponsors imagine that 4 millennia in the past, God promised the land to the Jewish folks, who will rule it till the rapture and, in the end, the second coming of Christ. On this state of affairs, Christians shall be saved and ascend to heaven whereas these adhering to different religions shall be despatched to hell.

Whereas not all evangelical Christians in america (roughly 1 / 4 of the inhabitants) maintain these Christian Zionist convictions, polls present that a big majority imagine that the fashionable state of Israel and the gathering of tens of millions of Jewish folks there are “fulfillments of Bible prophecy that present we’re getting nearer to the return of Jesus Christ”. Many Christian Zionists additionally imagine within the “prosperity gospel,” which contends that blessing Israel ends in private and monetary acquire. These tenets compel Christian Zionists to help Israel’s settlements and different expansionist insurance policies by way of donations, lobbying, and, as within the case of the cowboys, labour.

For twenty years, HaYovel has introduced lots of of volunteers every year to work in settlement agriculture. With many overseas employees fleeing since Hamas’s assault on October 7 in addition to Palestinians barred from working in settlements and Jewish Israelis referred to as up for army obligation, extra Christian Zionists just like the cowboys are filling in. As one American employee advised Israeli channel i24, “I can’t go into Gaza and struggle, so I’m gonna assist right here on the farm.” The Christian volunteers additionally communicate of themselves as “boots on the bottom” throughout Israel’s time of want, invoking their labour as a army operation.

This white, militaristic masculinity frequent amongst evangelicals was examined by scholar Kristin Du Mez in her 2020 guide, Jesus and John Wayne. Du Mez explores 75 years of white evangelical historical past in america, tracing how evangelicals have changed Jesus with an “idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism,” together with by way of such popular culture figures as Mel Gibson and John Wayne in addition to politicians like George W Bush and Donald Trump, all of whom “assert white masculine energy” and embody the evangelical values of patriarchy, authoritarian rule, belligerent overseas coverage and concern of Islam.

Whereas Du Mez’s research doesn’t give attention to Christian Zionism, she has famous the evangelical apply of supporting Israel. “[It’s a] type of slippage into America as a brand new Israel,” she stated in a 2021 interview. Right here Du Mez ostensibly refers back to the thought of early American colonists escaping spiritual persecution in England as the brand new Jews and America the brand new Israel, promised to the settlers by God.

This conflation of America and Israel as God-instructed colonialism – one which relies on the substitute of savage natives with righteous settlers – is revealed within the Christian Zionist cowboys’ rhetoric. Media interviews with Montanan John Plocher particularly spotlight the trope of fine cowboys versus dangerous Indians and the dehumanisation of natives – tropes transposable on to Israeli Jews and Palestinians.

In a December dialog with Israel Now Information, Plocher was requested why he thinks the Jewish inhabitants in Israel is so enthusiastic about him and his fellow cowboys. “They’ve stated that seeing the cowboys is like seeing the nice guys,” Plocher responded. “You consider all of the Westerns and John Wayne and all these individuals who arise for the proper factor and so it’s simply an encouragement to them.”

Although American settlers murdered and terrorised Indigenous ladies, youngsters, and different unarmed Native civilians and took the land for themselves, the narrative of fine white cowboys versus dangerous Indians has appeared repeatedly in US widespread tradition. Scholar Michael Yellow Fowl has examined this narrative “as a part of the colonial cannon asserting white supremacy and Indigenous inferiority” and relates how in Western films and tv, “Not solely did we spectacularly lose, however … we had been additionally offered as screaming, grunting, unreasonable savages.”

Although Zionists and Christian Zionists could declare that Jews are Indigenous to the land, it’s Palestinians – made Indigenous by way of Israel’s technique of settler colonialism – who are sometimes depicted as barbaric and backward, as “beasts strolling on two legs,” “little snakes,” and “human animals.” Equally, in a November interview with Israel Nationwide Information, Plocher in contrast Hamas and Palestinians extra broadly with grizzly bears and declared the necessity for the land to be rid of them. He recounted that grizzlies are an issue in Montana and that the “unique folks” who got here to Montana (which means white settlers) eradicated them. The issue now, he continued, is that folks need the grizzlies “in every single place”. “Allow us to do what we have to do to defend ourselves,” he stated, which means kill the grizzlies. “It’s the identical with you guys, it’s Hamas … We perceive you guys must go after that and eradicate that.”

As Israel commits genocide within the Gaza Strip with the help of america and as Israeli killings of Palestinians within the West Financial institution and East Jerusalem improve and settler violence in opposition to Palestinians within the West Financial institution turns into extra commonplace and brutal, the apparent parallels between Israeli and American settler colonialism, white supremacy, and aggressive militarism should compel us to counter these tropes and traits. Let the affinities between the 2 states impel increasingly of us to problem the parallel methods of violence and domination and, as Yellow Fowl has argued, “search justice on behalf of these colonized”.

The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.