Cruz and Huckabee vs Israel Over the Latin Patriarch: When US Christian Politics Meets Jerusalem

Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee both criticized Israel for blocking the Latin Patriarch from the Holy Sepulchre. Here is why Christian Zionists are uncomfortable with what Israel did this Palm Sunday.

The political coalition that has most consistently supported Israel within American conservative politics — the Christian Zionist movement, represented institutionally by figures like Mike Huckabee (current US Ambassador to Israel) and Ted Cruz (whose evangelical Texas base is significantly Christian Zionist in orientation) — found itself in an unprecedented awkward position on Palm Sunday 2026 when Israeli police blocked the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from entering Christianity's holiest site.

Both Cruz and Huckabee publicly criticized the Israeli action — Cruz through a statement on social media, Huckabee through what diplomatic observers described as an unusually direct private communication to Israeli counterparts followed by a public statement calling the restriction 'unnecessary and counterproductive.'

The awkwardness is structural. Christian Zionism — the theological and political position that holds that Jewish sovereignty over the biblical Land of Israel fulfills divine prophecy and therefore merits unconditional Christian support — has generally operated on the premise that American Christian support for Israel and Israeli respect for Christian access to holy sites are compatible objectives. The Palm Sunday incident tested that premise in a highly visible way.

Cardinal Pizzaballa is not a marginal religious figure. He is the highest-ranking Catholic official in the Holy Land, appointed by Pope Francis, and his relationship with Israeli authorities had been functional and even cordial by most accounts. The police decision to block him — apparently made at a local operational level rather than by senior Israeli government officials — landed politically like a much more deliberate choice than it may have been.

Israeli authorities moved relatively quickly to arrange an alternative access arrangement once the diplomatic consequences became clear. But the image — the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem turned back at the gates of Christianity's holiest site on Palm Sunday, while Pope Leo delivered a homily about the hands of war being full of blood — is one that the Israeli government would have strongly preferred not to generate.