Joel Rosenberg: "The Iron-Dome Is Not An Offensive Weapon"
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This week on Live in the Dream, a friend and a voice to us comes back at such a critical time and with a brand new book. Joel Rosenberg, he is a multi New York Times bestseller. And I always brag on him in that his fiction and his nonfiction stuff is equally amazing. I think he's the rare author, excuse me, who can do that.

but he's also a dual citizen between Israel and the U S and he provides such amazing insights on a regular basis, but this brand new book, he's got his enemies and allies and unforgettable journey inside the fast moving and immensely turbulent modern middle East. We love that he gives us time to pick his brain in the book is fascinating and has all kinds of access.

that I really believe only Joel has. And he's been in such a place, a path that has put him there to talk to world leaders and in a way that I don't think anyone else is doing right now. So Joel, welcome back.

Well, it's great to be with you, Shannon. And since we spoke last on this podcast, you have become a number one New York Times bestseller, telling the stories of kings and crown princes and presidents and whatever, particularly the women that influenced their lives. This was ancient history. I'm doing contemporary geopolitics. See, maybe you have rubbed off on me. So any authors out there getting your books together, take lots of advice from Joel Kahneman.

because he's got lots of good advice. This book that you have out now, Enemies and Allies, is so unique because of the conversations, the taking us places we never would go otherwise. Did you think that when you were putting this together, you would have such incredible access? Because you've had it in the past with certain leaders. This is really something new.

And I think what makes Enemies and Allies unique is that, you know, you could one could put together a book of observations from the from the sidelines and you could talk to Middle East allies.

analysts and low-level State Department people. But this is going in and sitting with almost all of the major players, the kings, the crown princes, the presidents, the prime ministers. I had no intention of writing a book when this first began because I was getting invited to meet with these leaders as an evangelical leader, not so much as an author and certainly not as a journalist, but they...

almost all of them wanted their conversations to be on the record. They wanted us to share what we were seeing about the big reforms they're making in their countries. And so many reporters told me they wanted to write their own book. And would I help them? I kept saying yes, but they didn't write it. I finally thought, well, maybe I should write this by myself. And yeah, there are some fascinating tectonic changes going on in the Middle East that I think most Americans don't

Haven't noticed in part because they've been so focused, understandably, on covid and race riots and closed churches and bitter partisan divides here at home in the United States that they haven't noticed all the big changes going on, both for good and for evil in the Middle East.

So let's talk about that in the context of a little bit of current events type chatter. I mean, obviously, the world has been transfixed on what's happened in Afghanistan. We knew the U.S. was leaving. There's a lot of debate and criticism, bipartisan in nature, about how we left Afghanistan.

That will be debated for years and probably decades to come. But there are ripple effects there that involve Pakistan and Iran and all these other players in that region that are so critical to what you have been studying and working on and writing about. So where are we in your assessment today with that region progress and danger?

Okay, so it's really two competing stories. It's two entirely different trend lines. And the question is, which sides can prevail, right? On the evil side, the darkness side, you've got the sense that radical Islamists in the Middle East believe that the wind is at their back, that Allah is on their side, and that they are ascendant. Iran getting dangerously close, just...

potentially within a few months now, of having enough enriched uranium that they could actually start building fully operational nuclear warheads. And that's chilling, especially when you look, as I do in Enemies and Allies, at

what the leaders of Iran say, particularly the Supreme leader, that they want to wipe Israel off the map because Israel in the Supreme leader's view is the little Satan. And because they want to wipe out United States because we are the great Satan. So, uh,

That's a problem. And Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told me on the record that he regards the supreme leader of Iran as, quote, the new Hitler, unquote. So, yeah, I do a lot of analysis in the book. But the question is, how do Arab Muslim leaders see Iran and the threat of radical Islamism? How does how do the Israeli leaders, how did how did, you know, Trump and Pompeo and Pence see

see it and why did it shape their policies? That's the bad side. But the good side is four Arab countries have made peace with Israel, normalized relations at the end of the Trump administration. Nobody saw that coming. There was so much criticism of Trump. I can't do it. And he'll make the situation worse in the Middle East. And in fact, just the opposite was true. So

The short version of that is Biden has now stepped in. And unfortunately, by surrendering to the forces of the Taliban on the eve of the 20th anniversary of 9-11, he has single handedly pulled the Jenga stick out of the game and it has collapsed. And and this has emboldened

the enemies of the United States, the enemies of Israel, the enemies of the Arab world, and it has rattled our allies. And this is a catastrophic problem that Biden has created for himself. And I'll just say one last thing, what I hear from the leaders of the region, they're saying, goodness, if Mr. Biden can't handle the Taliban, how is he going to stop Tehran?

Well, to be fair, do you think there's a way and this isn't your specialty, but it's just your opinion. Is there a way we could have left Afghanistan? Listen, knowing the Taliban was likely going to resume leadership of that country in a way that would have left us in any better position. You know, critics and of President Trump and supporters of President Biden will say there was no good way to get out and left.

We were going to be left with this group that is brutal, that has no regard for women, among many other minorities and groups that they are more than happy to openly oppress, torture and kill. What else could we have done? Well, I was I disagree with President Trump's desire, decision to pull all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan. So I'm bipartisan in my criticisms. However, I.

To Mr. Trump's credit, and I think you do have to give him credit, that he wanted to pull all U.S. forces out day one of his administration, and he didn't.

He listened to his generals. He listened to Pompeo. He listened to Pence and others. And and they told him, don't pull the Jenga stick out. Right. You don't want to be the guy that causes the Taliban to surge back in and Al Qaeda to surge in and and, you know, and have what what Biden has done. So what did Trump do? He scaled down.

you know, bit by bit, and then he would pause, he would assess, how are we doing? And at the end, he had 2500 roughly US forces there, about 7500 NATO forces. And that seemed to be bolstering the Taliban, I'm sorry, the Afghan army to feel strong enough that they could keep doing the fighting. And I think Trump deserves credit actually for that.

There was the famous call that if we pull all the way out, right, he was on the phone with Baradar, the Afghan leader, or the Taliban leader, and he said, you know, I'll blow you to kingdom come. I was told by a source, he actually said, I will nuke you. Now, given the new Bob Woodward book, I...

My sources tell me he didn't mean literally using tactical nuclear weapons. He was using that, you know, as a colloquial expression. I will, you know, I ruin you. I will annihilate you. And it seemed to work right. The collapse didn't happen under the steady, careful drawdown. It happened with the abrupt collapse.

um surrender and full pull out and you know you have boris johnson is furious couldn't even get his phone answered for 36 hours as his own people were behind enemy lies behind enemy lines you got the french uh uh president uh macron has now pulled his ambassador out of washington because he's so furious about uh biden on a range of issues by

Biden was supposed to strengthen, in his view, in his promise, strengthen U.S. alliances. Just the opposite is happening, unfortunately. So a couple of other things. As you and I are talking now, there's been a conversation today about a certain group of very far left Democrats who are pushing to pull from, you know, they're having all this funding fighting on Capitol Hill.

Pushing to pull Iron Dome funding for people, I would imagine most of our listeners are familiar with that, but this is a protective system that Israel uses to target and eliminate incoming threats, missiles and those kinds of things. I don't know if this will go anywhere. I don't know if it has legs, but what do you make of this conversation now on Capitol Hill that as they fight about every penny now and it's getting ugly in the spending stuff,

that the U.S. would kill its funding for the Iron Dome in support of Israel. Yeah, it's a very serious test right now, President Biden and the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, because when you have, yes, you do have the radical left, the anti-

Israel left AOC and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar and others. And they have forced a billion dollars of funding out of this current budget discussion. And that money is purely for defensive purposes. The Iron Dome is not an offensive weapon. It's a system actually that was funded originally by Democrats. This is one of the things I say in Enemies and Allies that a

Biden and Obama get huge credit for. I have watched the Iron Dome knock out rockets and missiles over my head, over my family's heads, the heads of my friends. It has saved our lives. And I say that in the book because I think that, look, I think Biden wants to be a bipartisan person when it comes to Israel. I think he genuinely loves Israel. I think often his judgment is flawed. And the test now is,

you know, another rocket war can erupt overnight. You had me on the program in May when almost 4,500 rockets were fired and it just comes out of nowhere. You can't know when the next barrage of four or 5,000 rockets are coming. But if you run out of missile and rocket interceptors, uh,

then these missiles will land on civilians in Israel. It will kill a lot of Israelis. And then we will have to send in ground forces into Gaza. And that is not something anybody wants.

wants to do. So it's a huge test of Biden and the Democratic leadership. And I will also add, Shannon, that I do have criticisms of Biden on Afghanistan, on Iran policy. But when it comes to Israel, Biden's the best that the Democratic Party has. And so he needs to be encouraged and supported, especially by evangelicals, which I am one of and encourage Christians to pray for the president and to stand with him where you can.

I think that's great advice. We all are called to pray for our presidents, pray for our leaders, regardless of whether we voted for them or not. In good and bad times, I can't imagine the pressures of being the U.S. president. At any moment in time, it seems like it would be overwhelming. So that man in the future, that woman needs our prayers and our good wishes to bear up under those pressures every single day. Live in the Bream continues in a moment. ♪

The Fox News Rundown, a contrast of perspectives you won't hear anywhere else. Your daily dose of news twice a day. Featuring insight from top newsmakers, reporters and Fox News contributors. Listen and subscribe now by going to FoxNewsPodcast.com. So in Enemy and Allies, Enemies and Allies, your brand new book, tell me who surprised you the most of these leaders that you were able to get access with and sit down and talk.

Well, that would probably be a jump ball because they're all doing such huge reforms in their countries that most Americans don't know about. When we sat in the United Arab Emirates palace with MBZ, Mohammed bin Zayed, we kind of gave him our standard boilerplate stuff about, well, we love Israel. We're praying for the peace of Jerusalem. We want to know who's going to be the next Arab leader to make peace with Israel. And he's like, Joel, it's going to be me. I'm like, what?

And so he told us two full years before he signed the Abraham Accords that he was going to do it. Unfortunately, that conversation was off the record and we couldn't walk out and go, "Hey, Shannon, I got a story for you." Great news. But we tell it now. This is the only book that tells the inside backstory. I got both a front row seat and a backstage pass to how the Abraham Accords came to pass.

But then here's another, President el-Sisi of Egypt rescued 100 million Egyptians from the reign of terror of the Muslim Brotherhood, rebuilt all the churches that had been burned down and damaged and destroyed by the Muslim Brotherhood, and then

builds the largest church in the history of the Middle East, and gives it to the Christians of Egypt on Christmas Eve as a present, and asks me to bring a delegation to be there for that moment, which is what I did. That's really stunning. A Muslim leader building a huge cathedral and giving it to 17 million Christians on Christmas Eve, like,

but the biggest one of clearly Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. And I spend the most time on him in the book because there are books written by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, a former CIA senior official,

All these biographies about him and these men who wrote the books had never met him, much less talk to him on the record. Mine's the only book that does this. And it's his story is complicated because there are some things that are infuriating about decisions that he's made. And I am very honest and candid about those. And we talk to him directly about those things. Very complicated.

uncomfortable conversations. The Jamal Khashoggi murder, for example. Of course, yeah. But also, he is completely changing the direction of Saudi Arabia. He's firing 3,000 extremist clerics in the mosque. He's changing the textbooks and removing anti-Semitic and anti-Christian references. And he had me in the palace.

An Israeli, right? He hasn't signed on yet to the Abraham Accords. He hasn't decided to make peace, but he hasn't stood against the Abraham Accords. He's allowing Israeli planes to fly over Saudi territory. And as I describe in the book, the only book that does it,

He met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saudi territory last December. Like this is this is a country that Saudi Arabia that's heading towards. I think I think he's heading towards peace with Israel and that will be the mother of all peace deals. So it's hard to pick which which of these leaders is. I mean, I think there is more surprising because they're all out trying to outdo each other with these moderate leaders.

Jewish friendly, Christian friendly, pro-growth reforms that we just, you know, I'm a fiction writer, Shannon. I would have to make these things up, except they're really happening. And most Americans just don't know these stories. Yeah. And everyone should want to move towards peace and safety for everybody of the region. I got to ask you, because you mentioned the conversation about the Khashoggi murder.

If you could tell us anything more about that, because for a lot of people, that's disqualifying. They feel like that's not somebody that we should have any association with or sit down with or negotiate with or be in partnership with because that is a horrific case. It is a horrific case. And we arrived just weeks after the whole thing blew up into a huge global firestorm. Look, I spent a lot of time on this in the book, but I will say a couple of things. First,

There is yet no proof that MBS ordered the hit. OK, now, even I write in the book that even at the even as Biden took office, he released a four page intelligence document that said that MBS was responsible for ordering the murder. But at the end of the document, it lists about 26 different Saudis that were involved in the operation. But

But it specifically says that the U.S. intelligence cannot determine for certain if these people knew that their action would result in Khashoggi's death. Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. If at the beginning of the document you say MBS ordered the murder, and then at the end of the document you say that the people who did the murder couldn't have known necessarily that what they were doing would lead to his death, these two things don't add up.

And what you basically have at this point, look, I say in the book, he may have ordered it. I've not seen the proof of that, but that's pretty horrific.

But what we have is the assumption that he must have done it. But the problem with that is there's two big assumptions that we've seen in recent years. One would be Trump must have colluded with the Russians. He must have, because how else could he have won? Except the $35 million investigation said, no, there's no proof of that. Or Saddam must have chemical weapons. And that's why we went into Iraq.

But when we got there, we're like, oh, actually, he must have, but he didn't. These are problems because when you take on and now declare one of your main allies in the Middle East a cold-blooded murderer without proof, you really run the risk of undermining a very important relationship that we need. Last point on that.

Biden is in a difficult position because he's saying he doesn't want to work with MBS because of this murder, but he's working with Iran who just elected a president who is under U.S. sanctions for murdering 30,000 of his own people. And it's very difficult to understand where Biden's principles lie. Are we dealing with somebody who killed 30,000 of his own people and the Iranians are an enemy, but we're not going to deal with a person who might have murder

murdered one and i i'm against that but we don't he hasn't proven it and he's an ally so

It's tough. And I'm honest about how tough it is and the implications of that in the book. Do you think it's plausible that this could have happened on MBS's watch without him directly ordering it? Because that's the you know, that's the the plausibility question that people have. There may not be hard evidence. We may not be able to get our hands on it if it exists. But is it plausible that under his leadership, this could happen without his signing off on it?

Well, and I looked at several different scenarios in enemies and allies. And one of the scenarios that would be his defense essentially is I told people to take care of it.

And they and I meant bring them back, bring the man back so we can interrogate him and maybe imprison him even here in Saudi Arabia. But that my team went by the old Saudi rules. And I didn't mean that. Now, that's a possibility. On the other hand, you could go with the godfather scenario, which is take care of it.

And that means go kill this guy, right? I don't know the answer. And the evidence that, or the documentation that the Biden administration has put out

doesn't tell me. And this is a problem because I wanna know if he did it, then we have to process that he did it and now we've got to make a decision, okay? Our mutual friend, Senator Lindsey Graham has said, "I'm not dealing with the Saudis with MBS on the throne or near the throne."

But he doesn't seem to be going anywhere. So now what do we do, right? Why are we dealing with a guy in Iran who's killed 30,000, right? So I struggle with this as a Christian, as a human being, as an American, as an Israeli. MBS is leading the most sweeping reforms ever in the history of all of Saudi Arabia in 300 years that this family has controlled the peninsula. Again, you'd have to make him up all the good things that he's doing, right?

But I struggle with it. And I've sat with him for four hours. And when we first walked in there and I say that, are you walking into a person who's maligned by the media and attacked? Or is this actually the director of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? It makes a difference of who you're sitting with. And I can't say that our group felt like we were in the presence of sheer evil, but he would have to be.

if he ordered this man to be chopped up into little pieces. So, boy, it's this is the fairest book that the Saudis are ever going to see about this topic. I am not easy on the Saudis or MBS, but but I don't immediately assume that he is the director of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre any more than I can assume that Trump colluded with the Russians or the

or that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons because those seem like such obvious, we are certain, there's no question, except it turned out not to be true.

Yeah. Following the evidence and the documents and the intel often doesn't give us these concrete answers that we want in some of these most difficult cases. But there is no book that will give readers a more inside look at these top leaders. Access, like you've never seen anywhere else. Enemies and Allies is the book.

Every day, Joel, there's a change. There's a story we could call you about because this region is at the epicenter of so much of what is happening in the world, decade after decade, century after century. If people really want to get a better feel for who's there calling the shots now, who could be moving into the future and what that future may be, this is the book. Congratulations. And we always appreciate your time. Oh, thank you, Shannon. I appreciate it very, very much. We'll see you again soon.

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