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Loving God, Loving Others and Leading Others to do the Same

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Home » Biblical Prophecy Unfolding? Joel Rosenberg’s Take on Israel’s Current Crisis

Joel Rosenberg, we’ve got a lot to talk about. It’s been a big week with the election, and I want to start there because, you know, Donald Trump’s reelection, his second term, this is coming at a time when Israel has been, for more than a year now, embroiled in war in Gaza and chaos, with a lot of other key actors in the region threatening—more than they have in recent memory—against Israel’s very existence. So, how does Donald Trump’s win, becoming the 47th President of the United States, in your view, potentially change the dynamics of this war?


Trump’s Reelection and Its Impact on Israel

‘66% of Israelis wanted Donald Trump to be elected as the President of the United States.’

Well, to quote him, Billy, it’s huge, it’s absolutely huge. Israelis overwhelmingly wanted Trump. This is interesting, right? Because obviously, unless you’re a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen like me, Israelis obviously can’t vote in the elections. They know—all Israelis know—that the elections were going to have a huge personal impact on how this war is finished, whether it’s actually won, and what our security and prosperity are going to be in the years ahead. So, the poll released by an Israeli television network just on the Sunday before the elections showed that 66% of Israelis wanted Donald Trump and only 17% wanted Kamala Harris. That’s astonishing because, you know, this wasn’t 51-49, right? This is after the Kamala Harris closing argument: Trump’s a Nazi, Trump’s a fascist, Trump is Hitler; all his people are garbage. That’s a good point; that’s actually a really good point, that closing argument. Wow. I had Israeli Jews and Israelis generally reject that, and if there was any country that might think, “Oh gosh, if somebody’s Hitler, we don’t want him around,” no. It was a, almost a 50-point margin for Trump here in Israel.

A Unique Israeli Perspective on U.S. Leadership

Why is that? Because it wasn’t close. Israelis heard all the rhetoric, but they saw four years of Donald Trump in action, and he was super pro-Israel, and they saw President Biden and Kamala Harris on the stage for four years, and they are partially pro-Israel, but they’re a bit schizophrenic.

“Donald Trump he was Super Pro-Israel.”

There are days that they’re more supportive of the Iranians, it would seem, the Iranian regime. They wanted to try to make an Arab-Saudi-Israeli peace deal, but they couldn’t get it done, right? Everyone told Biden and Harris, “Don’t pull Jenga sticks out of the game in Afghanistan, or the whole game will collapse,” and the most embarrassing, humiliating moment in American history, at least since losing in Vietnam, I guess, at least, right, is losing Afghanistan after almost 20 years of fighting there and putting it back in the hands of the Taliban. So Israelis were not unclear about the differences. I’m not saying they agreed with every tweet, every statement—nor did most evangelicals, or many, at least—but it was clear in Israelis’ minds that they would get a better deal, that they’d be safer and more prosperous if Trump was in power. So, there’s a lot of not only rejoicing but relief here as well.

Israelis’ Concern Over Survival

Well, and I think, and it’s difficult for Americans to maybe do this, but putting yourself in the Israeli mindset, which obviously you can do because there you are living there and being an Israeli now, when you’re looking at this, and you went through October 7th, 2023, this horrific event, you’re looking at your survival and who’s going to most support your ability to survive when you have forces outside of your country saying that they want you gone, they want you wiped off the map. So, it makes sense that they’re going to support the Israelis, the candidate who, regardless of the tweets or the other things, that they believe is going to do that, is going to ensure their survival or at least help in some way. When you look at what is happening—and this is a tough question, but you get these questions all the time—and you look at October 7th and the events that have followed and what is happening in the region there now, prophetically, what goes through your mind? Are we watching things that feel prophetic to you, or are we not? You know, just reflect on that a little bit.

The Prophetic Divide: Trump vs. Harris

Sure, back for one moment on the Harris-Trump divide, part of it was policy, to be sure, except at the end of the campaign, both were saying similar things in the sense: “I stand with Israel, I’ll have Israel’s back, we’ll never let Iran get the bomb.” So you think, all right, well, that’s a jump ball. No, but part of it was the personalities.

Israelis saw Kamala Harris as weak and a snowflake
who would melt in the heat, and they saw Trump as strong.

Israelis saw Kamala Harris as weak and a snowflake who would melt in the heat, and they saw Trump as strong. They weren’t listening to every speech, every policy nuance, but they also saw Biden and Harris putting enormous pressure on Netanyahu, our prime minister here, Benjamin Netanyahu, not to decapitate the Iranian regime after they fired 500 missiles at us and not take out the Iran nuclear facilities, whereas Trump was saying, absolutely, if there’s ever a time to do it, do it now. That was a key difference, where you realize Harris is saying she’ll never let Iran get the bomb, but when the moment comes to destroy the Iran nuclear facilities, she says no. So that’s a big change.

Analyzing Prophecy in Today’s Middle East

In terms of prophecy, it’s interesting, Billy. So, at All Israel News, which is the news site that I run here, as well as on my TBN show, The Rosenberg Report, I’ve been dealing with this from time to time, right? Because that is the number one question I’m getting asked: How do you put the current moment in, or can you put this in a prophetic context, and if so, how? Right, so here’s the short answer. I would say, number one, we’re definitely in a birth pain, right? Jesus speaks in Matthew 24 that there’s going to be contractions and releases, moments of wars and rumors of wars, and kingdom against kingdom, nation against nation, as well as earthquakes and famines and other disasters. Those are contractions. And just like when your wife gets close to delivering the one you want, right, the person that you’ve been waiting for, you want that person to arrive. As you get closer, the contractions are longer and more painful, and the release moments are shorter, right? And you’re catching your breath, and then you’re going right back into the next contraction.

A Time of Peace, Interrupted

Israelis, on October 6th of 2023, we were living in a release, right? This was the safest, most prosperous, peaceful, secure time Israelis had had in the entire history of Israel, modern Israel, right? You’d have to go back to the days of Solomon and David, when the kingdom was peaceful and secure. But Israelis had just made four Arab-Israeli peace treaties and normalization treaties with President Trump, the Abraham Accords, right? We were just about to finalize another deal, the biggest peace and normalization deal in Israeli history, and that would be with the Saudi government. So we were feeling relaxed. Our borders were calm, and then we entered, on October 7th, the greatest contraction and the longest contraction that we’ve been through so far. I would add that, just in context too, I believe COVID was a biblical Matthew 24 contraction, where not only did six million people die from this disease—okay, there’s disagreements about exactly, you know, was every single—a lot of people died, right? Yeah, but a lot of people died. But the other part was not only was there this terrible health pandemic plague, a biblical plague, but even the American government could say in an instant, “You can’t go to church, you can’t leave your house, you can’t go see your friends,” but the strip clubs could stay open, the casinos could stay open, the bars could stay open, liquor stores, but not churches. That was a contraction, and it was long and it was painful.

Global Contractions and Prophetic Shakings

I think the Russian invasion of Ukraine, now becoming the longest—well, not the longest, but the most severe land war in Europe since World War II, another major contraction that is still going on. So I think the seven-front war that Israel faces now from enemies from seven fronts, this is a contraction. So I think that’s the most important way to think of it biblically. There’s one other, and I would say Amos 9:9. The Hebrew prophet Amos received a word from the Lord, and that was that the Lord said, “I will shake the whole house of Israel among the nations.” Now, that’s happened several times throughout history. I think it’s a recurring prophecy, but the point is Israel is being shaken more severely today, over the last, you know, 300, you know, almost 400 days now, than in any other time in modern Israeli history. I don’t believe Israel’s under judgment. I believe God, you know, in other words, God didn’t send this enemy, but God sovereignly allowed it. Why? To shake us, to help us realize that most Israelis either haven’t read, don’t remember, or don’t care about Psalm 23, in which David, our greatest king, told us, “The Lord is our Shepherd,” right? And so most Israelis don’t think of God as the Shepherd, if they even believe in God at all.

“The Lord is our Shepherd,” right? And so most Israelis don’t
think of God as the Shepherd, if they even believe in God at all.”

The problem with that is you don’t need the Shepherd just to feed you; you need him to protect you. And if you think there isn’t a Shepherd, if you think you don’t need a Shepherd, if you think the Shepherd is impotent or he’s mean or he doesn’t care, your problem is you don’t seem to understand the rest of Scripture, which is warning you that there are ravenous wolves trying to devour and destroy you. And that’s what happened. Israelis forgot temporarily in their feeling of security. We forgot as a nation that there are ravenous wolves trying to destroy us.

Related:

Divine Judgment in Gaza?

That’s, it seems astonishing to think, “How could you forget that you’re Jewish?” Right, yes. But it shows what a moment of release, of security, we felt like we were in. But I think this is a wake-up call. I will say one last thing, and that is I believe that the Palestinians of Gaza are going through a judgment, a biblical judgment. The Abrahamic Covenant, Genesis 12:1-3, is clear. God says, “I will bless those who bless you,” Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Israel, “and I’ll curse those who curse you.” Now, if you curse Israel every day for 76 years, and you elect a genocidal government, even if later you don’t want that, but what are you going to do now? And so this is, I believe we’re seeing a judgment. Doesn’t mean God doesn’t want to show mercy also. We need to pray as Christians. Who else is praying for the Palestinians? We need to be. We need to show compassion, but there’s a judgment going on from 76 years of hatred, hostility, cursing, and now, you know, an attempt at genocide against Israel and the Jewish people.

Prophetic Context: Gog, Magog, and Middle East Tensions

Well, and then you look at, you know, Ezekiel, right? You look at the prophecies. You and I have talked about these many times. You know, Gog and Magog, and you try to understand that invasion and what we see sort of being described there, and you look at Turkey right now and what Turkey has been saying about Israel. You look at, obviously, you brought up Ukraine and Russia. You look at Russia, which, Gog and Magog—Russia has been at the top of the charts as a speculation for who that may be. You have Iran, you know, Persia mentioned there. When you reflect on those elements—and I’m not saying that this is part of that, but it’s hard not to wonder when you look at all the chess pieces and you read Ezekiel, and you think, “Wow, what are the odds these would be the countries that we’re talking about?” I’ll throw that to you, but that’s been intriguing for me to watch.

The Alignment of Nations

It’s absolutely intriguing. So, the first part of my answer is what’s actually happening right now that is prophetic, and I think the answer is Matthew 24, Amos 9:9, and then the judgment that comes from Genesis 12:3 if you’re just willfully hostile to the curse God says he’ll put on you if you curse Israel and the Jewish people chronically and without, you know, without repentance. But in terms of watching where we are going, there’s no question in my mind that we’re seeing the chess pieces on the board align in a manner that’s consistent with the prerequisites of Ezekiel 38-39 happening, the war of Gog and Magog. Israel has to be a nation again; obviously, it is. It has to be living securely. Now, that’s a prerequisite. Now, there’s two ways to think about that, Billy. The one answer is that on October 6, 2023, we were so secure that that checked the box, and even though God didn’t describe the Hamas invasion and what’s been happening over the last 400 days, that that’s somehow been, we’re still set into motion to what is coming, even though God didn’t give us every detail. That’s possible.

The Role of Israel’s Enemies and Potential Scenarios

But there’s another possibility, and that is that the horrific invasion that Israelis were blindsided by and the attack from all sides has given us the requirement, the moral necessity of attacking and destroying our neighboring enemies. I believe that Donald Trump is telling Prime Minister Netanyahu, “Listen, Bibi, I’m totally with you, as I was publicly. I’m with you to win, but you have to win by January 20th. Like, I want you to be done in Gaza against Hamas, I want you to be done against Hezbollah in Lebanon, because I want to come into power on Inauguration Day and be able to say, ‘I’m ending wars, the world is getting more secure, and I am just taking the oath of office now.'” Now, what Netanyahu is being told by Trump about how to deal with Iran, I don’t know. Maybe Trump is giving him the signal, the green light, to say, “Look, you go do what you got to do, just be done by the 19th of January 2025,” right? Or he could be saying, “Get the other two done, and then I’m coming back, and I will help you, and we will put a maximum pressure campaign that’s ten times more pressure on the Iranian regime than before. And if we have to use force, we’ll use it.” But remember, Trump is saying, “I don’t want to use force.” He’s saying, “I end wars.” That’s his big promise right now. He didn’t say that really so much in 2016, but he’s saying it now, which means don’t expect new military activity unless it’s absolutely essential.

Israel’s Potential as a Dominant Power

The point, Billy, is this: If we actually defeat Hezbollah and Hamas, which we’re very close to doing both—just I want people to hear that, you’re not hearing that from the mainstream media, but it’s true—I think we can be done by mid-January, Lord willing. And then what happens? Israel is the dominant superpower. Suddenly we have defeated two of our biggest enemies, and then Trump comes in and finishes off what President Biden and Kamala Harris could not do, and that’s the Israeli-Saudi-American peace deal. This will be like, “Oh my gosh, six months from now, you and I could be sitting here, four months from now, potentially saying, ‘Oh my gosh, Israel is not only the dominant superpower in the region, but it has the biggest peace treaty now.'” Other countries want peace too. The Lebanese government, once they—if they get rid of Hezbollah and rise again and show themselves a sovereign power, they could want to be in on the Abraham Accords.

‘2025 could be a year of peace and prosperity in the
Middle East unlike the Middle East has not known.’

So, 2025 could be a year of peace and prosperity in the Middle East unlike the Middle East has not known and far better than October 6 of 2023. And if that’s the case, then you, then, then I’ll, I’ll tell you my answer in advance: that could be then the time that after a number of other Arab countries make peace with Israel, the Palestinians may finally say, “Okay, okay, okay, yes, we get it.” Like, right, Gaza is not going to become a terror state again. The world, you know, Israel won’t let it.

Looking to the Future

And then what happens with the reforms inside the Palestinian Authority? I’m not particularly bullish on those, but when I look at prophecy, the prophecies that we’re talking about, Ezekiel 38-39, Israel has to be living securely in the land before Russia, Iran, Turkey, and other countries start to move. So, I can see it going either way. Either we’re already in it, and Iran’s going to persuade Russia, “Listen, you got to come help us,” and Erdogan won’t be hard to persuade. That could happen, but we haven’t seen it yet, so I don’t want to reach. And I’m just giving the other alternative, which is, Israel could be far more peaceful and secure six months from now, a year from now, and then we could be looking at the chessboard getting even more interesting.

Avoiding Premature Conclusions

I just want to caution people who are interested in those prophecies, as you and I are, don’t try to jump to a fast conclusion. The data doesn’t support yet a conclusion, but it definitely supports your premise, which is, “Isn’t this interesting?” Yes, it’s very, very interesting, and we’ve never seen the board look like this in the last 2,600 years since Ezekiel wrote the prophecy.

No, I love that, and it’s so helpful to have you break that down because I do think people jump ahead, you know, in prophecy, and they make determinations that aren’t necessarily accurate. Sometimes it’s just as simple as, “This is really interesting; it’s something to watch.” But I love the ones you did break down, saying, “Hey, this is what actually is happening.” That discussion about judgment there, I think, is very, very interesting as well.

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