By building the IFCJ into a such a powerful philanthropic force, Eckstein has mollified erstwhile critics like Foxman. "I'm popular now because we give away money and that has helped leverage this whole issue [evangelical support for Israel] to give it legitimacy in the Jewish community," Eckstein said proudly. As a testament to Eckstein's success, in 2002 Foxman took out full-page ads in major U.S. papers, reprinting a pro-Israel Op-Ed written by Reed, then chairman of the Georgia Republican Party.

When Sharon and Bush came to power in 2000, they began a cozy relationship that has become iconic of the evangelical-Likudnik marriage Eckstein helped broker. With Eckstein as his advisor, Sharon has courted the support of evangelicals more aggressively than most of his predecessors. In the fall of 2002, for instance, Sharon told a crowd of 3,000 evangelical tourists in Jerusalem, "I tell you now, we love you. We love all of you!"

That same year, he invited Bauer to Jerusalem for a private meeting with his Cabinet. "I was given a great deal of access and a number of briefings on the various issues they're facing," Bauer told me. "In my meeting, ... I attempted to explain that they had a much broader base of support in the U.S. than perhaps they realized and they should be sensitive to the fact that more Americans than they think regard Israel as a natural ally." To help make his point, Bauer gave Sharon a letter of support signed by leading evangelicals like Charles Colson, Jerry Falwell and Focus on the Family president James Dobson.

As for Bush's friendly relations with Sharon, Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor for the first President Bush, told the Financial Times this month, "I think Sharon just has [Bush] wrapped around his little finger." Yet Bush is complaisant not only to Sharon but also to his own domestic base. After all, over the past four years, Eckstein and his evangelical allies have waged a fierce lobbying blitz to pressure Bush against participating in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process that every American president since Jimmy Carter has engaged in.

Their campaign gained momentum at the National Rally in Solidarity with Israel in April 2002 on Washington's Mall, which was attended by over 100,000. While popular figures like author Elie Wiesel and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani issued fiery denunciations of Palestinian terror, the most boisterous applause of the day was reserved for evangelical radio host Janet Parshall, who boomed, "We will never give up the Golan. We will never divide Jerusalem." None of the rally's Jewish speakers was nearly as strident; in fact, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, a prominent neoconservative, was booed for referring to the daily suffering endured by Palestinians under occupation. The rally coincided with the initiation of Reed and Eckstein's Day of Prayer and Solidarity with Israel, which mobilized 17,000 evangelical churches to pray for Israel that October.

With a number of close associates now working in the White House, Eckstein and company leveraged their grass-roots muscle into high-level access. In July 2003, Eckstein brought 20 leading fundamentalist evangelicals to the White House for "a quiet meeting" with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Middle East advisor Abrams. There, delegation members stated their fervent opposition to the Israeli-Palestinian road map while Rice explained the administration's sympathy for their position. Rice "talked about her religiousness and how her father was a Baptist minister," Eckstein recalled. "And she explained the administration's position: It's Bush's faith that prompts him to take some of his major positions. I think that's what's so attractive about Bush to people," Eckstein added. "You can become relativistic, but what's needed is black and white."

Alhough Eckstein says his meeting with Rice marked the first time leaders of the Christian right had met with a high-level White House official on Israel policy, it wasn't the last. As Rick Perlstein of the Village Voice reported, in March Abrams met with leaders of a self-identified "theocratical" lobbying group, the Apostolic Congress, to allay their concerns about Bush's pending endorsement of Sharon's Gaza pullout plan. And evangelical leaders like late Religious Roundtable director Ed McAteer have reportedly held numerous off-the-record meetings on policy toward Israel with White House public liaison Tim Goeglein, who was the spokesman for Bauer's 2000 presidential campaign.

Curiously, Eckstein refused to tell me who was among the delegation he brought to the White House, though he did mention that Bauer was pointedly uninvited as punishment for running against Bush in the 2000 Republican presidential primaries and attacking him as insufficiently conservative. Yet lack of direct access hasn't prevented the wily Bauer from influencing White House policy on Israel. When the Bush administration criticized Israel's botched assassination of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi in June 2003, Bauer e-mailed an alert to 100,000 followers calling for pro-Israel pressure on the White House. "We inundated the White House with e-mails and faxes arguing that Israel had the same right to defend itself as we did. In very short order, the tone of the White House changed dramatically, and I believe it was the reaction of Christian conservatives in favor of Israel that changed the tone," Bauer said. And when Israel did kill Rantisi in April, the White House issued the now boilerplate statement of support for Israel's "right to defend herself."

Bauer's influence earned him the keynote address at the 2003 annual convention of pro-Israel lobbying powerhouse AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), where he says he was interrupted 12 times by standing ovations. Bauer has also played a leading role in lobbying on behalf of Israeli settler groups (he refused to say which ones) against both the road map and Sharon's Gaza pullout plan. "Off and on over the years I have met with various groups in the West Bank, and they've come to the U.S. I've given them my best read on what the lay of the land is in Washington and how they might be more effective in getting their message out here," Bauer said. "I oppose ethnic cleansing, and the idea that the West Bank or Gaza should be a Jew-free zone is deeply offensive," he added.

Bauer, unlike Eckstein, who is beholden to Sharon and his Gaza policy, has little to lose and everything to gain by working with Israel's most reactionary elements. Through his political action committee, the Campaign for Working Families, Bauer is aggressively soliciting donations from conservative Christians for the Bush campaign while plugging the latest version of the GOP's anti-Kerry "flip-flop" attack on his group's Web site. Bauer ostensibly hopes that by backing Bush, he can heal the wounds his 2000 primary run opened and, if Bush wins, earn back his place at the grown-ups table.

Although Eckstein says he's a registered Democrat, he has converted to Bush's side and is urging other Jews to join him. "I personally think the Jewish community and America should vote for Bush because I think he will be stronger on terrorism. And anything less than a full confrontation [with terrorists] has the potential, God forbid, to spell the end of Western civilization as we know it," Eckstein said. "I, like many Jews, support John Kerry's domestic agenda, and that's why I think many Jews are struggling with this choice in a big way."

Whether or not Jews have struggled with their choice, most are supporting Kerry. A nonpartisan poll taken by the American Jewish Committee in September showed 69 percent of Jews supporting Kerry, compared with 24 percent for Bush. The poll's other findings reveal strong Jewish opposition to Bush's policies on social issues, but overwhelming support for further dismantling of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, an issue Kerry has studiously avoided and Bush has refused to press with Sharon.

Another factor in Jewish support for Kerry is his unabashedly pro-Israel platform. To reinforce Kerry's message, his campaign in July released a policy paper, "Strengthening Israel's Security and Bolstering the US-Israel Special Relationship," stating positions on the Gaza pullout and Israel's separation wall that are identical to Bush's.

But if Kerry is elected, members of the Christian-Zionist lobby should not expect any backslaps from the new president. With Bush back in Crawford, Texas, Eckstein and company's White House soul mates would have to return to their think-tank fellowships and academic jobs, severely compromising the influence and access the lobby has worked for over two decades to attain.

Already, Bauer is grumbling, "I would be happy if Kerry was overall pro-Israel, but I would have to caution that before the race got going in earnest, Senator Kerry repeatedly said where the president failed in not having a balanced approach in the Middle East. A balanced approach is the last thing I would want."

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