Writing a novel is a vulnerable experience. After months or years of work, many authors come to view their book as an extension of themselves. So when a writer starts looking for a fresh pair of eyes, it can be hard to decide who to trust. But for Evangelical pastor and Trump adviser Mike Evans, the choice was simple: just ask the Israeli government.
Leaked emails reveal that, back in 2018, Evans sought help from Israeli officials on his new novel about an all-out war on Israel, masterminded by a rogues’ gallery of Iran, Hamas, ISIS, and, to a lesser extent, the media. The outline that Evans shared offers a unique look into the thinking of an informal Trump adviser, as well as the Israeli reserve colonel who edited the story (and seemingly received about $1,150 for his troubles).
The worldview depicted in the outline, which was never published, is bleak. Iran and Hamas sneak explosives and even Sarin gas canisters into children’s backpacks in order to provoke Israeli soldiers into attacking innocents. When their plan to destroy Israel goes sideways, Iranian officials try to instigate the apocalypse. At the end, our hero’s wife reminds him that all of this fighting is simply inevitable. “[T]hey hate us for who we are,” she intones. “As we are who we are, and they are who they are, things will always be this way.” (Writing in the margins, the Israeli colonel wonders if this may be “overly simplifying the situation.”)
Evans, who founded the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, is among America’s most prominent Evangelical Zionists. He is a long-time friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was a “confidant” to several other Israeli prime ministers. In 2017, he joined other Evangelical leaders in laying hands on President Donald Trump in the Oval Office before presenting him with a “Friends of Zion” award. In a 2021 blog post, Evans claimed credit for putting up 220 billboards in Jerusalem calling on Trump to “make Israel great.”
The precise extent of Evans’ relationship to Trump is unclear. In Trump’s first term, Evans served on a board of Evangelical advisers to Trump that encouraged the president to focus on religious freedom and support for Israel’s government. Evans broke with Trump in 2022, claiming that the president had “used” Evangelicals in order to get elected. But he appears to have returned to the MAGA fold in the meantime. He hosted Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, for an event earlier this year. And in a January interview, he told an Israeli outlet that, while he doesn’t speak for the president, he knows him “extremely well” — well enough to speculate on Trump’s plans for peace in the Middle East, at least.
There is, however, no lack of clarity surrounding Evans’ relationship with Israel. “I told my wife when I married her that there was another woman in my life. I had to be with her a lot,” he once wrote. “Her name was Israel.”
But writing has always been Evans’ second passion, judging at least by his wide range of self-published tomes, including such classics as “Showdown with Nuclear Iran,” “Netanyahu: A Novel,” and “What I Learned as a Moron.” The leaked outline, simply titled “Hamas Novel,” never made it to print. But luckily for you, digital ink is cheap, so we’ve decided to share it in full here.
A spokesperson for the Friends of Zion Museum said in a statement to RS that Evans "never wrote a book on that subject." When asked to clarify whether Evans wrote the outline, the spokesperson did not respond. Reuven Ben-Shalom, the Israeli reserve colonel who edited the story, confirmed in an email that he was paid for providing comments on Evans' book. Ben-Shalom said the edits were a "singular project" done "at the request of a friend."
The plot to destroy Israel
Like all good action stories, Evans’ novel begins with a conspiracy. Iranian generals gather around “the Ayatollah,” which apparently refers to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and present their plan for destroying Israel. The dastardly plot revolves around an escalating series of operations, starting with protests in Gaza followed by child-led suicide bombings in Jerusalem and culminating with an invasion of Israel from all sides. If all goes well, then the world will also break with America over its support for Israel and impose sanctions on Uncle Sam.
“[W]hat if the strategy does not succeed?” asks one general. “[I]t won’t matter,” responds another. “We will all be dead.”
Enter Ben-Shalom, the Israeli reserve colonel charged with editing Evans’ outline. Some of his notes are practical — a “large scale operation” like the one the Iranians propose can’t be “executed in two days,” he warns — while others are more about PR. When Iranian generals plot to “provoke IDF soldiers to shoot” civilians at the border, “as they did in previous protests,” Ben-Shalom warns Evans that this is “buying into a Palestinian agenda” by simply calling them protests.
“[T]he riots and attacks were pre-planned and were carried out during a long period of time,” the Israeli officer argues. (During the protests in question, which Palestinians described as a grassroots movement, Israeli forces killed at least 300 Palestinians and injured 30,000 more, according to the United Nations.)
The emails, which were released as part of a hack by a pro-Palestine group called Anonymous for Justice, indicate that the Friends of Zion Museum paid Ben-Shalom 3850 Israeli shekels, or roughly $1150 at the current exchange rate, for his edits. Gidon Mor, an Israeli official whose exact job is unclear, appeared to facilitate the relationship between Friends of Zion and Ben-Shalom.
As the story continues, Evans rattles off a head-spinning series of pro-Israel tropes about Hamas, Iran, and their influence in the world. In order to prepare for the attack, an Iranian official enters Gaza disguised as a Qatari diplomat, presumably with help from the Qatari government. The operative instructs his Hamas contacts to orchestrate a series of protests, with “Women and children in front” for maximum effect.
Soon after, an Iranian advertising executive orchestrates coverage of the protests by subtly informing his gullible network executive friend of plans for a march. “You should look into it,” the secret Iranian agent says. “Get ahead of the competition in breaking the coverage.”
Evans goes to great lengths to blur the lines between Hamas members and civilians. In one dramatic scene, he portrays seemingly coordinated maneuvers in which Hamas operatives push protestors to storm a checkpoint as militants fire rockets in support. Elsewhere, agents with Shin Bet, Israel’s internal counterintelligence service, warn that “Arabs have never simply protested. It always turns violent.”
Perhaps most confusing is Evans’ view of Islam. On one occasion, an Iranian agent tells Hamas leadership that the plot is “the will of the Ayatollah as prescribed by Allah.” But Hamas, as a Sunni Islamist organization, would have no interest in a Shiite leader’s interpretation of the will of God. Evans goes on to lump together Hamas, ISIS, and al-Qaeda — all of which hate each other on both political and religious grounds — into one big anti-Israel fighting force.
The pastor also portrays Iranian leadership as nothing short of insane. When Israeli operatives thwart the first two steps of Iran’s plan, Iranian generals resort to the “Mahdi option,” in which Tehran launches a suicidal war in order to provoke the return of the Mahdi, a messianic figure that many Shiites believe will return to prepare the world for the end times. “[J]ust before we are obliterated, the Mahdi appears to protect us and restore order,” one general says.
Near the end of the outline, it becomes clear that Evans wants U.S. support for Israel to go much further than it has in the past. As Israeli soldiers work to beat back Iranian troops, U.S. forces provide close air support in what would be the first ever incident in which Israeli and U.S. soldiers carried out such operations side-by-side. Evans then portrays a series of U.S. airstrikes against targets within both Iran and Israel.
Ben-Shalom offers a series of increasingly frustrated notes in this section. “U.S. planes would not support Israeli troops,” he wrote, before chiding Evans a second time for “too much mixing [of] Israeli and American forces.” The third time, Ben-Shalom appears to reach a breaking point, simply commenting “NO” in response to the latest suggestion of joint U.S.-Israeli operations.
Evans ends his tale with a tender moment. After saving the children from their own backpack bombs — and thwarting Iran’s invasion — our hero sits with his wife and laments the state of the world. “[T]hey were just kids,” he says as he starts to cry. “They could have all been killed.”
But Ben-Shalom has no patience for melodrama. “There was an all-out war with Iran, with a serious threat to Israel, and the only thing on his mind are those kids?” he asks. “Shin Bet save people every day.”
