In Israel, Donald Trump’s landslide presidential victory brings great joy and a heightened sense of awareness at the same time. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds great hope in what appears to be a Trump-led rebuilding of the strained relationship between the longtime allies but is also aware that the beginning of better times is still two months away.
In the meantime, the Iranian threat not only remains but intensifies as its leaders also understand that change is coming.
“Over the next two months or so, the most dangerous place on the planet will be the corridor between Tel Aviv and Tehran,” noted Israeli-American publisher and Middle East expert Joel Rosenberg said on American Family Radio Friday.
“The Iranian regime now has to decide if they're going to launch a massive attack against Israel. You would think they're going to do it while President Biden and Vice President Harris are still in power,” he told show host Jenna Ellis.
Israel has already withstood an Iranian attack of almost 200 missiles on Oct. 1. It did so with help from the U.S. and Jordan, but there has always been the subplot of mixed signals of U.S. support for Israel since the murderous rampage by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
Joe Biden and other U.S. leaders have been insistent in calls for a ceasefire, and the U.S. has dangled the threat of not supplying Israel with key weapons and munitions. Trump, based on his decisions in his first term as president and his current list of nominees to key positions in his administration, is expected to lead a 180-degree turn in the U.S. approach to Israel.
“The happiest person on the planet right now in terms of a world leader is Benjamin Netanyahu,” Rosenberg offered.
“I will say, in fairness, Netanyahu got a lot of support from President Biden at the beginning of the war. But as the war has gone on and the radical progressive left of the American people – not even just to the left of the Democrat Party; it's the heart of the Democratic Party – has been pressuring Biden to stop being so supportive of Israel, Biden has started to tie Netanyahu's hands,” Rosenberg said.
But Netanyahu has pushed on, and Israel has used stellar intelligence to decimate Hamas and send key blows to Hezbollah, knocking off key leadership figures in both of the Iran-funded terror groups.
Biden admin at times kept in dark
Much to Biden’s frustration, the U.S. hasn’t always been kept in the loop about these moves. For example, the U.S. was not informed of Israel’s plans of the mission that led to the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in late September.
“Within hours, senior officials were leaking how furious they were, that they weren’t informed, that Israel did this without our permission,” Rosenberg told Ellis in a late October interview.
It was an absurd response, Rosenberg said, considering that the very Hezbollah leadership and militants killed by Israeli attacks have killed hundreds of Americans in different Middle East incidents through the years.
While Netanyahu celebrates the results of the U.S. election, there’s also the other end of the scale. Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran since 1989, lived through the first Trump term, although perhaps not comfortably. In fact, according to Rosenberg, it has been Biden who has given Khamenei a lifeline from the earlier Trump-imposed sanctions.
“It’s very possible the Iranian regime under Khamenei would have fallen over the last four years. Instead, the Iranian regime went into offense and erupted a massive regional war against Israel, America's number-one ally. So, Khamenei is terrified,” Rosenberg said. “Trump doesn’t want wars in the Middle East. He’s certainly not going to countenance some massive attack by Iran.”
Trump’s nominations of Marco Rubio as secretary of state, Pete Hegseth as defense secretary and Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel validate this thinking, Rosenberg stated.
“He’s put an evangelical Christian in as secretary of defense and an evangelical Christian in as secretary of state and an evangelical Christian in as ambassador to Israel because he is sending a message. He’s not going to be cowed by the radical religious extremist crazies in Iran,” Rosenberg said.
If all of this makes Netanyahu the happiest world leader on the planet it also makes Khamenei the “most terrified” – and perhaps the most dangerous, Rosenberg says. And it underscores the need for heightened awareness as Israel’s war against Iran and its proxies continues.
Threats to Israelis continue at home and abroad
Just days before the election, two Hezbollah rocket attacks killed seven people in northern Israel in what authorities said were the deadliest such attacks in months.
Israelis face threats abroad too. Five people were hospitalized and 62 arrested as Israeli fans and protestors clashed after a soccer match in Amsterdam last week. Leaders from countries said anti-Semitism spurred the violence.
So, while Rosenberg lauds the “amazing choices” Trump is putting in position, he cautions “they’re not there yet – [and] that makes the next two months incredibly dangerous here in the Middle East.”
