This comes mostly from “Christian Zionism”, something unique to the US so far as I know.
Zionism proper is a movement within Judaism that advocates (with varying levels of aggressiveness) the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It has origins way back in the 19th century when the reconstituting the nation of Isreal was just a dream.
Christian Zionism is the belief, mostly within the same fundamentalist sects that gave us Christian Nationalism, that God plans to ultimately “save” Israel, and then posits two key points in relation to this: (1) god will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel as a national entity and (2) in order for the salvation of Israel to be realized, certain “prophesies” must be “fulfilled”, most basically the restoration of the nation of Israel, the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the restarting of the ancient temple sacrifice system (for those who care to look into the nuttery further, this properly involves special “red heifers” which some rich Texan has been breeding in order to ship them to Israel at the proper time).
At any rate, Christian Zionists see the “fulfillment” of these things as something that also hastens the End of Days, the Rapture, and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. They actually care very little for Israel as such, so much as they care to cater to what they see as a divine command to honor and support Israel (and an implied threat if they don’t), and a means to an end: the culmination of all their fever dreams of world hegemony and the ultimate triumph of Christianity, including the Jews finally admitting that they were wrong and Jesus really was / is the Messiah.
The Israelis of course think this is all risible hogwash, but find the Christian Zionists to be useful fools, so they cater to them, to the point of even allowing them to establish a museum in Jerusalem that supposedly documents the rituals, instruments and processes of the Temple sacrifice system so as to have an operations manual ready for the appropriate time, etc.
What the Israelis get out of it is almost no-strings-attached US weaponry, an almost blank check to annihilate the Palestinians, and in the case of the Netenyahu regime aid in assaulting Iran whenever they want to, etc. It has created a political environment in the US where any substantive criticism of the secular Israeli state or its corrupt government is seen as tantamount to anti-semitism.
I doubt that the average Congress-critter is fully aware of all these dynamics; they simply know that they exist, and they either beat the drum for Israel or at least are afraid to criticize them. Hilarity ensues.
