ALL ISRAEL NEWS Editor-in-Chief Joel Rosenberg, who also hosts THE ROSENBERG REPORT on TBN, was recently invited to speak before 1,200 Evangelicals at the Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines, Iowa. While the summit mainly focused on conservative issues, its audience – in a region far from the conflict zones of the Middle East – is deeply concerned about Israel’s future.
In a special on-stage conversation, Rosenberg sat down with Family Leader CEO Bob Vander Plaats, a long-time pro-Israel voice and an advisory board member for ALL ISRAEL NEWS. Vander Plaats, who led the summit, posed the tough questions that Christians from the Midwest have been asking about the war in Gaza, the war with Iran, U.S. policy in the region, and Bible prophecy.
ON IRAN ATTACK: ‘This was a huge game-changing moment’
Asked about Iran’s role in the current war, Rosenberg began by offering historical and biblical context.
“Well, biblically, Iran was a friend of Israel. It was Cyrus the Great who liberated the Jewish people, sent us back home to Israel to rebuild, rebuild Jerusalem, rebuild the temple,” he said. “But the rise of the ayatollah, particularly the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, in 1979 brought in such a wicked and demonic regime whose mantra was death to Israel and death to America.”
Rosenberg warned that Iran is not only focused on Israel, but the United States as well. “Remember, Israel is only the little Satan in their end times theology. The United States is the Great Satan. Starting with taking of the U.S. embassy hostage on November 4th, 1979, humiliating Americans for 444 days. And ever since, they have either been taking Americans hostage or killing us or maiming us for half a century, almost. But they decided to make a concerted effort to wipe Israel off the map.”
He emphasized that the current war is unlike any before it, highlighting the scale of Iranian involvement with an unprecedented attack on seven fronts, including – for the first time ever – directly from Iran’s own territory.
(Photo: Screenshot/TBN’s The Rosenberg Report)
“We have been living through the missiles, the rockets, the pain of so much death and so much destruction, so much terror and so many missiles. It’s exhausting, but Iran is behind all of it,” Rosenberg said.
He explained that Israeli leaders have often referred to Iran as an ‘octopus.’ While Israel has long targeted its tentacles – proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah – it had until recently avoided striking the “head” in Tehran. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett , who used the same analogy, discussed this on the program shortly before Israel made a major shift in its military strategy.
“Thursday night of that week, he was on the show saying it’s enough already. Netanyahu has to go after the head of the octopus. You need to attack Iran. We can’t wait any longer… A few hours later, the attack began. And so this was a huge game-changing moment.”
Rosenberg went on to explain why: “Not just that Israel started attacking without the assurance that America was ever going to come to [help] us – because we never asked America to come fight our war for us – but [U.S.]President [Donald] Trump had made a promise Iran would never get the bomb. To his credit, he gave Iran’s leaders 60 days to make a deal or else. He was super clear.”
“I can tell you for darn sure the Iranian leadership didn’t think 60 meant 60,” he added.
“Israel had to do it because we were facing a second Holocaust. But President Trump kept his word. He did it with a tremendous courage.”
(Photo: Screenshot/TBN’s The Rosenberg Report)
ON OCTOBER 7: ‘We were blindsided’
Vander Plaats asked what was on the minds of many attendees: How could Israel, with its world-class intelligence and constant high alert, have been caught off guard by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023?
“It’s very difficult so far to even grasp that,” Rosenberg admitted. “The commissions [of inquiry] haven’t even begun because we’re still at war. We’ve been fighting on seven fronts. But to think that Prime Minister Netanyahu – who understands radical Islamism better than anybody on the planet and has been warning the United States about the threat of radical Islamism long before 9/11 – missed it. How his team missed it. It’s one of those moments that’s hard to explain.”
Rosenberg predicted political fallout would come fast. The next elections in Israel are scheduled for October 2026, but they could also “come sooner,” he said. “There’s going to be a political tsunami, and everyone that was involved in missing it will be washed out to sea.”
Rosenberg mentioned that Naftali Bennett is perceived as the frontrunner with the potential to unseat Netanyahu, according to local polls . To Netanyahu’s credit, Rosenberg said, “He has been very successful in winning a war that he didn’t see coming.”
Part of the failure was psychological, Rosenberg explained: “Israel got lulled into a false sense of security because Netanyahu and President Trump had made four historic Abraham Accords… and we were this close to another deal… the mother of all peace deals with Saudi Arabia.”
Even Hamas, he said, was sending false signals that it didn’t want conflict.
“We were blindsided… There was an opportunity and that Israel’s guard was down. In fact, it happened to be the 50th anniversary of the last sneak attack by Egypt and Syria on Yom Kippur, the High Holy Day, 1973. And so most soldiers were on vacation. They were home with their families and nobody saw this coming,” Rosenberg said.
“But the other thing was the urgency. Iran’s leadership sought the urgency, which was, they were hell bent on destroying the coming Israeli-Saudi peace agreement,” he continued.
Both Rosenberg and Vander Plaats pointed to weak leadership from the Biden administration as creating a window of opportunity for Israel’s enemies to act.
“Afghanistan collapsed. The Taliban took over. And so now it was ‘open season’. Russia went into Ukraine and Iran attacked us from seven directions. And we just feared that China would go after Taiwan and try to take over the Pacific.”
(Photo: Screenshot/TBN’s The Rosenberg Report)
On President Trump: ‘He did the right thing’
“President Trump decided that it was in America’s interest to finish the job and thus bring that war to an end faster,” Rosenberg noted.
His decisiveness and moral global leadership shifted the momentum in Israel’s favor.
“I think that Israel is the ally that President Trump considers the paradigm. This is the type of ally we want. An ally that doesn’t complain, isn’t begging. If it gets attacked, it fights,” Rosenberg said.
Rosenberg praised Trump’s support, especially when it came to the high-level military needs required to deal a major blow to Iran’s nuclear facilities and set their program back years.
Moreover, he noted, the president did it against the strong resistance and advice of some very close friends, Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon.
“They argued… the president was abandoning MAGA and starting a war… Well, it didn’t,” said Rosenberg. “It lasted 12 days. President Trump wasn’t starting a war. He was ending a war that started in 1979.”
Just how significant was the president’s decision?
U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, recently told Rosenberg in an interview that “Trump is bringing about change in the Middle East and in the world and in the United States of biblical proportions.”
ON EVANGELICALS: ‘Pray for the Church in Israel and the region’
“Why is it imperative that America stand with the nation of Israel?” Bob Vander Plaats asked Rosenberg in conclusion.
“There’s two reasons I would say, although there’s a whole Bible full of them,” Rosenberg began. “One is that God repeatedly says that he considers Israel the apple of his eye… And the second… ‘I will bless those who bless you, but those who curse you, I will curse.’”
“We’re not just dealing in a world of geopolitics and cost-benefit analysis. Those are important. And Israel lines up great on that as an ally,” Rosenberg said. “But there’s also biblical truth that Israel is a country that’s lost. It’s the house of the lost sheep of Israel… We’re supposed to love them because God loves them and he has a plan for them. And that plan is not over.”
“We need the blessings of God on our country at every level… and now the question is for followers of Jesus Christ. I think to also be praying for the church in Israel and throughout the region because, through all the volatility in the violence, the whole region is rattled. It’s a region in darkness, and it’s a region without hope. And the hope is the light of the Gospel.”
Watch Joel Rosenberg’s full discussion at the Family Leadership Summit on the TBN website.
THE ROSENBERG REPORT airs Thursday nights at 9 p.m. EST and Saturday nights at 10 p.m. EST on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the most-watched Christian television network in the United States.
