Speaker Johnson’s West Bank Visit: A Catalyst for Criticism

In September 2022, the arrival of five red heifers in Israel captured global interest. Now, three years later, these cows are being looked after in ancient Shiloh, an illegal settlement in the West Bank and home to some of the most extreme Israeli settlers. Shiloh continues to draw international visitors, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to name just a few…. Jewish tradition holds that the ashes of the red heifer are essential for the reconstruction of the Third Temple. Some Christians believe that the establishment of a Third Temple could signal the onset of the end times. However, this does not explain why Speaker Johnson selected a location within an unlawful settlement in the West Bank to not only affirm his religious beliefs but also to advocate for Israel’s unjust claim to Palestinian territory.

According to Boneh Israel, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to the restoration and revitalisation of Biblical sites in Israel, led by Byron Stinson, a native Texan, the Bible indicates that the essential element for constructing the Third Temple is a Red Heifer. The Red Heifers Research Centre, part of Boneh Israel, clarifies that one of the most mysterious commandments from God, which is to be observed as a religious obligation known as mitzvahs in the Torah, is the parah adumah, or red heifer. According to this ancient belief, the animal was utilised for ritual purification. When an individual becomes ritually impure, they are barred from entering the Holy Temple or participating in sacrificial offerings and consuming other sacred foods. Hence, to achieve purification, one must be sprinkled with a specific blend of spring water and ashes from the incinerated remains of the red heifer, thus establishing the red heifers as crucial to the Temple. On January 28, 2025, The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) shared insights about red heifers brought to the illegal Israeli settlement of  Shiloh, in the West Bank, offering intriguing details regarding the ritual and its significance.

VIDEO: Texas Red Heifers’ Arrival at Ben Gurion Airport, Israel  Stirs Prophetic Excitement (Source: CBN)

.
Additionally, it has been reported that right-wing individuals, spearheaded by Yitzhak (Tzahi) Miemo, a student and protege of the late Rabbi Benny Elon, a right-wing politician infamous for guiding yeshiva students in the illigal appropriation of property and the eviction of Palestinian families in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, along with the Temple Institute, which is led by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, were involved in the search for the red heiffers.
. Both of these men serve as spiritual leaders for Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Meir Kahane.
In May 2025, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee made a historic official visit to the Ancient Shiloh site located in the Binyamin region of the southern Occupied Palestinian Territory in the West Bank, marking a first for a current U.S. diplomatic representative. Huckabee journeyed to this biblical location, often regarded as the spiritual capital of the Jewish people throughout history. While at Shiloh, Huckabee and his wife, Janet, recited Hannah’s Prayer from the biblical Book of Samuel at the tabernacle site, offering prayers for the safety of hostages and IDF soldiers in Gaza.

VIDEO: US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee reciting Hannah’s Prayer from the biblical Book

.
On Monday, August 4, 2025, US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson attended a dinner as the guest of honour, hosted by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, in the controversial West Bank settlement of Shiloh. Mike Johnson’s recent trip to the settlements of Ariel and Shiloh in the occupied West Bank was more than just a political statement—it was part of a long-standing evangelical initiative linked to end-times prophecy. Accompanying Speaker Johnson were Republican Congress members Michael McCaul, Claudia Tenney, Michael Cloud, and Nathaniel Moran. In 2023, Johnson extended an invitation to a rabbi and a Texas evangelical group responsible for sending five “red heifers” to Israel—these animals are pivotal to a biblical purification ceremony intended to initiate the apocalypse. During his visits to the West Bank, Speaker Johnson and his delegation explored the historic site of Shiloh, where the Tabernacle once stood, and they were presented with engraved Bibles as a symbol of unity. The visit was organised with the U.S.-Israel Education Association (USIEA) and the Yesha Council, the umbrella body representing all local authorities in the West Bank, which oversees the 22 new settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territories, including the legalisation of outposts that were constructed without government approval. The visit included senior officials such as Ambassador Mike Huckabee, several U.S. Congress members, and Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

VIDEO: US Speaker of the House visiting Shiloh’s Tabernacle in the occupied West Bank

.
Reportedly, the red heifers were sent to Israel disguised as “pets” to bypass US export laws. Additionally, land was quietly obtained close to the Temple Mount for the sacrificial ceremony. Johnson was recently spotted at the site where the heifers are being raised. Ryan Grim and Emily Jashinsky from Breaking Points have recently covered the Red Heifers story, revealing Mike Johnson’s support for an unnamed right-wing Lobby Group focused on rebuilding the Jewish Third Temple, a venture that would require the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Some believe that the unnamed group is likely to be the Christians United for Israel (CUFI), founded by Pastor John Hagee. Johnson and Hagee embody the typical Christian Zionist perspective, motivated by visions of a disastrous war in the Middle East that signals the return of Christ or the ‘Messiah’.

VIDEO: House Speaker Goes FULL APOCALYPSE In West Bank Visit (Source: Breaking Points)

.
According to a readout provided by the Ariel Municipality, Speaker Johnson declared during his visit to Ariel, another Israeli illegal settlement in the West Bank, that “The Bible teaches that the hills of Judea and Samaria were promised to the Jewish people and belong to you (Israel) by right”, adding “The world may not see it that way, but we do.” Following Johnson’s trip to the West Bank, the Israeli media and their ‘echo chambers’ around the World have been tirelessly exploiting Johnson’s remarks to persuade the global community that the West Bank (which they proudely reffer to as Judea and Samaria ) is part of Israel, a stance that blatantly violates international law and numerous United Nations resolutions.

IMAGE: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) takes part in a vine-planting ceremony with Ariel Mayor Yair Chetboun at the city’s National Leadership Center, Aug. 4, 2025. (Source: Ariel Municipality)

Amidst the uproar caused by Speaker Johnson’s trip to the West Bank, the Temple Institute announced on Tuesday that the remaining red heifers, brought from Texas by Boneh Israel for the necessary purification ceremony, are unsuitable for the ritual. In their statement, which provides great details about the red heifers’ disqualification, they acknowledge their failure after two decades of searching for the perfect red heifer. Interestingly, Abu Obeida, the military spokesperson for the Izz ad-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the military branch of the Palestinian Resistance Group ‘Hamas’, made a televised statement on the 100th day of the Israeli conflict in Gaza, during which he indicated that red heifers were a concern, and their potential sacrifice is a “detestable religious myth designed for aggression against the feelings of an entire nation” adding “our path and Al-Aqsa” reached its peak with the “bringing of red cows.”

Although most reasonable people recognise that the biblical mention of the red heifer and its significance is fundamentally a matter of faith, it is troubling that a delegation of high-ranking US officials would consider an official visit to illegal settlements in the West Bank. This action holds considerable diplomatic, historical, and symbolic weight, which the Hebrew State leadership quickly exploited to showcase the US’s unwavering support for Israel’s ‘illegitimate’ presence in the West Bank…

IMAGE: House speaker prays at Western Wall for US to ‘always stand with Israel’, Aug. 3, 2025. (Source: JNS)

 Brett Wilkins reports for Truthout…

Speaker Mike Johnson Calls Occupied West Bank an “Integral Part” of Israel

Johnson is reportedly the highest-ranking American official to visit an illegal Israeli settlement.

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday led a high-level Republican delegation on a visit to the occupied West Bank, where the second-in-line to the U.S. presidency told a rapt audience in an illegal Jewish settler colony that they are the rightful owners of the Palestinian territory.

“The mountains of Judea and Samaria are the rightful property of the Jewish people,” Johnson (R-La.) said in Ariel, using the biblical name for the West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem. Ariel was built on land stolen from the Palestinian towns of Salfit, Marda, and Iskaka after Israeli forces conquered the West Bank in a 1967 war waged on false pretences of an imminent threat of Egyptian and Syrian attack. “Judea and Samaria are the front line of the state of Israel and must remain an integral part of it,” Johnson added.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned Johnson’s visit, calling his endorsement of Israeli annexation a “blatant violation of international law.”

“All settlement activity is illegal and void,” the ministry stressed, adding that Johnson’s stance “undermines Arab and American efforts to stop the war and cycle of violence, while flagrantly contradicting the declared U.S. position on settlements and settler violence.”

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at least 1,013 Palestinians, including 214 children, have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 2023. Settlers, often protected and sometimes joined by Israeli troops, have launched numerous deadly pogroms and other attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank in what critics say is a bid to finish what Israel started in 1948 — the total conquest of Palestine, the ethnic cleansing of its Arab population, and Israeli annexation.

Johnson, who is reportedly the highest-ranking American official to visit an Israeli settlement, was accompanied by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee — who, while running for president in 2008, denied the very existence of the Palestinian people — as well as Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas), Michael Cloud (R-Texas), and Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.).

Tenney leads the congressional Friends of Judea and Samaria Caucus, which supports Israeli annexation of what it calls the “biblical heartland of Israel.”

Last month, all 15 Israeli government ministers from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party urged the prime minister to annex the West Bank. On July 23, members of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, voted 71-13 in favor of a symbolic measure declaring “Judea and Samaria” to be “an inseparable part of the Land of Israel, the historical, cultural, and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people” and asserting that “Israel has the natural, historical, and legal right to all of the territories of the Land of Israel.”

Netanyahu has repeatedly displayed maps showing the Middle East without Palestine, all of whose territory is shown as part of Israel. Following U.S President Donald Trump’s reelection last November, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a member of the far-right Religious Zionist party, said that “the year 2025 will be, with God’s help, the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.”

The Israeli government has repeatedly approved the construction and expansion of settlements in a bid to establish irreversible “facts on the ground” that will survive developments in international law and moves by an increasing number of nations to formally recognise Palestinian statehood.

Around 150 U.N. member states currently recognise or plan to recognise Palestine. Recently, France became the first Group of Seven member to announce it will officially recognise Palestine. Last week, Canada said it would also do so, with conditions attached, and the United Kingdom threatened recognition of Palestine if Israel does not take “substantive steps” to end its annihilation of Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 200,000 people since October 2023.

Last year, the International Court of Justice — which is also weighing a Gaza genocide case against Israel — found that the occupation is an illegal form of apartheid that must end as soon as possible. Both Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 8(2) the International Criminal Court Rome Statute prohibit settlement activity.

Construction of Ariel began in 1978, the same year the U.S. State Department first adopted the official position that Israeli settlements are “inconsistent with international law.” That position stood until then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reversed it during the first Trump administration. Biden-era Secretary of State Antony Blinken restored the long-standing State Department position in 2024.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has signaled support for reverting to the first Trump administration’s position, and the State Department has lifted sanctions imposed on some extremist settlers during the Biden administration. Last week, one of those settlers, Yinon Levy, allegedly murdered Palestinian peace activist Awda Hathaleen in Umm al-Kheir after the latter was denied entry into the United States to take part in an interfaith speaking tour.

Approximately 750,000 Israelis currently reside in more than 250 illegal settler colonies in the West Bank. While Israel grants every Jew in the world the right to settle in Israel, it has refused to allow the approximately five million Palestinian refugees — people ethnically cleansed from Palestine during the foundation of Israel in 1948 and their descendants — to exercise their legal right of return to their homeland.

The Republicans’ visit to the West Bank followed last week’s tour by Huckabee and Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff of a Gaza aid distribution center run by a U.S.-backed group condemned for its role in Israeli forces’ massacres of desperate people seeking food and other lifesaving aid — a visit denounced by one critic as a “blatant theatrical display.”

See more news from Truthout

READ MORE PALESTINE NEWS AT: 21st CENTURY WIRE PALESTINE FILES

SUPPORT OUR INDEPENDENT MEDIA PLATFORM – BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV

VISIT OUR TELEGRAM CHANNEL

21st Century Wire is an alternative news agency designed to enlighten, inform and educate readers about world events which are not always covered in the mainstream media.

Source: https://21stcenturywire.com/2025/08/08/speaker-johnsons-west-bank-visit-a-catalyst-for-criticism/