For researchers of the coming decades, the attack carried out jointly at the end of February 2026 against Iran by the United States and Israel will certainly remain a turning point in the history of the twenty-first century. Given its total illegality, it undoubtedly marks the lasting end of all international law as it had been conceived in the aftermath of the Second World War. The law of the strongest prevails, and nothing in recent history offers the slightest comfort about this state of affairs.
Beyond its geopolitical and economic aspects, the current crisis is provoking anxieties on a very different level, but one in particular is beginning to attract serious attention: with the aggression against Iran, we are witnessing a veritable apocalyptic moment. In a recent article, theology professor André Gagné rightly emphasized the importance of prophetic and apocalyptic political discourse in the United States. The dispensationalist exegeses of Baptist pastor Greg Laurie or of the Christian influencer Traci Coston leave no doubt: in the eyes of many evangelicals, the war in Iran has an eminently eschatological character.
Iran, Persia, and Amalek
Is Iran not historically Persia, the age-old enemy of the chosen people? That same Persia which certain evangelicals do not hesitate to compare with the impure peoples of Gog and Magog. In a video, already viewed by more than one hundred thirty thousand people, Greg Laurie explains that we are on the point of entering the scenario of the End Times: the rapture of the Church (a key element of evangelical doctrines according to which the righteous must ascend to heaven before the Great Tribulation begins) should take place in the coming days.
Undeniably, we have entered a veritable eschatological storm whose manifestations are multiple. To justify once again the attack on the Iranian mullahs, Benjamin Netanyahu made direct reference to Amalek, the hereditary enemy of Israel. Pastor Franklin Graham, the son of the famous Billy Graham, for his part called for prayer for the American soldiers engaged in the operation and thanked the president for proceeding with the destruction of the empire of evil. At the same time, the media devoted wide attention to the ramblings of the billionaire Peter Thiel, who gave four lectures in Rome on the Antichrist: in his view, the Son of Perdition will likely manifest very soon and establish a world government that will oppose science and artificial intelligence.
Fake News, the Messiah and the Antichrist
As always in wartime, propaganda is in full swing, the most extraordinary pieces of information circulate, and it becomes difficult to sort things out, to distinguish the true from the false. Fake news multiplies and reinforces not only conspiracy theories but also generalized distrust toward the media. We have all seen images produced by artificial intelligence: missiles striking the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the heart of Tel Aviv in flames, or American buildings on the verge of sinking.
As always in wartime, propaganda is in full swing […]. On the religious level, this same problem repeats itself.
On the religious level, the same problem repeats itself endlessly. Did high-ranking officers of the American army really speak to their troops about crusade and Armageddon, as the NGO MRFF—the Military Religious Freedom Foundation—claims? Did the MRFF really receive more than two hundred complaints on the subject? One may search in vain; no confirmation can be found anywhere. On the Israeli side, a video on YouTube amassed more than 30k views which seemed to show the Rabbi Baruch Rosenblum announcing the return of the Messiah for Thursday, March 18. The date is symbolic since it is the first day of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish ecclesiastical year, but one rarely hears a rabbi make a dated prediction about the return of the Messiah since Sabbatai Tsevi, the false messiah who appeared in 1666. No reliable media outlet confirms this claim, and it is unclear whether the video is authentic or not.
This eschatological fever that is spreading through social networks and among believers might seem silly. It is, however, far from harmless.
This eschatological fever that is spreading through social networks and among believers might seem silly. It is, however, far from harmless. The case of Baruch Rosenblum provides a striking example. Whether he actually made this prediction or not does not really matter. What matters is that the prediction was taken up by American influencers who diverted it from its original meaning. If the rabbi was speaking of the long-awaited coming of the Messiah, according to the Christian nationalists spreading it, he is actually describing the Antichrist. Thus, the tweet of a man presenting himself as a Navy veteran, who asserts that “Christ is king” and announces the arrival of the Antichrist, has been viewed more than two million times. Others have followed the same path, such as Australian white supremacist, Lozzy B., whose retweet of Rosenblum approaches one million views, or the retweet of the manifestly conspiracist account Open Minded Approach, which settles for a modest sixty thousand views.
In so doing, these various influencers contribute to reviving a well-established medieval tradition, that of the Jewish Antichrist. Indeed, if one looks at the reference text on the Antichrist—the famous letter to Queen Gerberga by Adso of Montier-en-Der in the tenth century—one finds there that the Antichrist will come from the tribe of Dan and will present himself as the Messiah announced to the Jews. This constitutes a powerful vector of anti-Judaism, which comes to fan the embers of an ever-latent antisemitism, now increasing because of the genocide in Gaza and the crimes of the Israeli government in the West Bank. One need only glance at the comments attached to the tweets mentioned above to get an idea: antisemitic imagery abounds. Eschatological expectations thus revive the old rivalries between revealed religions.
MAGA fractured by antisemitism?
This surge of antisemitism is all the more worrying as it goes hand in hand with the offensive against the war in Iran being waged by a faction of the MAGA base. A possible split within the political movement that brought Trump to power had emerged in November. These signs were not misleading: it is no longer a matter of divergences but of a genuine rupture over foreign policy and specifically concerning American financial and military support for Israel.
Two camps now seem to openly oppose each other: on the one hand, there are evangelicals and adherents of Christian Zionism who support Israel no matter what—do the Jews not have to convert at the End of Times, and must not the great final battle of Armageddon take place in Israel? On the other hand, there are the proponents of “America First,” who claim fidelity to Trump’s isolationist program.
Two camps now seem to openly oppose each other: on the one hand, there are evangelicals and adherents of Christian Zionism who support Israel no matter what—do the Jews not have to convert at the End of Times, and must not the great final battle of Armageddon take place in Israel? On the other hand, there are the proponents of “America First,” who claim fidelity to Trump’s isolationist program.
The well-known white supremacist Tucker Carlson had opened the hostilities in November by declaring that Christian Zionism is a “heresy.” He had also made a notable rapprochement with the neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, who openly champions antisemitism. Carlson has persisted in recent days, stating that the operation in Iran is “absolutely disgusting and evil.” Better still, he interviews Joe Kent, the former head of counterintelligence who resigned with great fanfare in mid-April to protest the American-Israeli offensive. What emerges from the interview are remarks of astonishing conspiracism: according to Kent, Trump would have been the victim of a Jewish plot that dragged him into the war. Worse still, Mossad is said to have been behind an attempt to assassinate Charlie Kirk! Apocalyptic ruminations and conspiracism often go hand in hand on the far right.
The rise of the eschatological storm
At present, nothing makes it possible to foresee an improvement in the situation in the Middle East. A new flare-up is to be feared and, as a consequence, numerous new end-of-the-world predictions are likely to emerge. If one wants to see clearly in matters of geopolitics, it will be necessary to take prophecy and eschatology seriously into account: thirty years after the fall of communism, religious questions are returning massively to the forefront, and the state power achieved by fundamentalists of every stripe in Israel as in the United States is particularly worrying.
And this is not about to stop—quite the contrary. The eschatological storm will continue to gain strength for several more years: 2033 is approaching, and many believers are convinced that Christ will return two thousand years after his death. Now, traditionally, on the basis of the Revelation of John, exegetes affirm that the events of the End Times will last seven years: no need to be a great mathematician to understand that 2033 – 7 = 2026!
Joël E. Schnapp is a French historian, holding a PhD in Modern History from the University of Paris-X Nanterre. He is a research associate at University of Grenoble and a specialist of Apocalyptic Traditions in the Renaissance and the Christian Polemics against Islam. He has written several articles about the Turks and Islam in the Renaissance, including his 2017 book called Prophéties de fin du monde et peur des Turcs au XVe siècle: Ottomans, Antichrist, Apocalypse. In 2023, he published an essay called Chroniques de l’Antichrist: Crises et Apocalypses au XXIe siècle, in which he reflects on medieval apocalytic traditions applied to contemporary history. He has also written numerous articles for Le Monde, Le Média, Le Nouvel Observateur, Le Point, and Lundi.am.
Image made by John Chrobak using “The Phillip Medhurst Picture Torah 423. Joshua fighting Amalek. Exodus cap 17 vv 10&13. Galle” by Philip De Vere licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
