Our Guest Joel Rosenberg

Sid: You know every once in a while you want to a diversion and I have found a diversion that is not a diversion it’s the real thing. It’s a book, it’s a fictional book but the author comes from a Jewish background an evangelical Christian background. And a background of being a researcher for Rush Limbaugh for a couple of years, working for The Heritage Foundation, Chief speech writer for Steve Forbes when he was running for President and then Israel’s Senior Advisor to Netanyahu who I believe will be the next Prime Minister of Israel. And you put that all together and you have his 3 sons really pushing prayer and you get hard to believe but no it isn’t because God…you know if God’s doing it it’s not hard to believe. You get a book that was #1 on Amazon, 11 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List and it’s not compromising on the gospel. But I have the author on the phone Joel Rosenberg and we’re featuring his latest book it’s called “The Last Days” its 384 pages you won’t want to put this book down. And not only that you’ll want to give it to as many people as possible. Joel we were talking about so many fascinating subjects especially from your background but there’s an individual that really intrigues me you were his Chief Speech Writer he ran for President of the United States Steve Forbes. And you told me he’s really a genius when it comes to the economy. What does he foresee in the near future of the United States? I mean the Republicans tell us that everything is peaches and cream as far as the economy.

Joel: Well, obviously it’s been struggling and I think that one of the things that Steve Forbes has been navigating for so long as a way of lifting off a burden of the economy and just letting it run fast and free is the flat tax. And you know Steve used to talk about we need to take the corrupt tax code and kill it, drive a stake through its heart.

Sid: Yeah, but don’t ever let that happen.

Joel: But it began to terrorize the American people and that was a great line and so I enjoyed working for him. Now what’s interesting Sid I got to tell you that when we did all that travel across America and two presidential campaigns and talking about the flat tax to lower peoples taxes, make it simple. We never imaged the two countries that would embrace the flat tax wouldn’t be America but would be Russia and Iraq. (Laughing)

Sid: Hm.

Joel: Vladimir Putnam in Russia put in a 13% flat tax a few years ago and now Paul Breamer says Iraq is going to go with a 15% flat tax later this year. And you know you never know what’s going to happen in a world of ideas. (Laughing) So but look working for him gave me insight to writing these books “The Last Jihad” and “The Last Days” because the world is fascinated with this new global economy and what drives our economy? Certainly information and computers and oil, oil and gas and that is long has been the weapon of choice in the Arab world but there are indications that I write about fictionally but it’s based on truth, based on research that I’ve been able to do with Steve Forbes and Netanyahu that there is gas and oil of immense commercial quantities in and around Israel.

Sid: Boy, that’s going to change the whole complexion of the world!

Joel: Everything and in the next year or two that that gets all proven out the research and the tests that they’re doing is that this is real commercial quantity. Imagine Israel being even a potential member of OPEC imagine US shifting our US consumption from Saudi Arabia to Israel!

Sid: Hm.

Joel: And the Palestinians. This will be the political thunder cloud that would just radically change the world, I’m not saying for the better I really believe it will trigger unimaginable consequences but I think that God will be right in the center of it. And that’s what I write, that’s where the series is going “The Last Jihad,” “the Last Days,” and the next book I think is going to be called “The Last Judgment.”

Sid: Okay Netanyahu.

Joel: Yeah.

Sid: He’s another individual that intrigues me immensely because I know that there is destiny in his genes, I know that he is not finished as being a leader in Israel. And what’s he like?

Joel: Well, it was an enormous privilege to get to work for him I was working with him in the year 2000 and he is a fascinating guy. First of all just spending time with him personally he’s a very relaxed, very articulate he speaks English so well, studied at Cornell University with Deputy Israeli Ambassador to the UN in the Gulf war. A lot of TV just an articulate man, he’s also one of the worlds foremost experts on terrorism and you know he was a Special Forces Commando. His brother Yanaton just tragedy was killed as a Special Forces Commando during the Entebbe raid to rescue Israeli hostages. But this is a family who knows terrorism; they understand the evils that we face in the Middle East and I just learned so much by working side by side with him and I tried to take what I’ve learned and weave it into these novel.s

Sid: You told me that you were actually involved in helping him win his election in the side run that Baruch took and how he lost because of that political maneuver.

Joel: Well, that was a fascinating time I don’t how much you want me talk about that but he basically when I got hired on Netanyahu was tied in the polls with Ahud Barach but like I said to you there is no correlation to this but by the end of the time that I worked for him I really mean it I’m not being falsely modest but it just happened over the next 3 or 4 months Be-be pulled 22 points ahead of Barach.

Sid: That’s Netanyahu’s Be-be.

Joel: Be-be Netanyahu and headed for a huge landslide. Barrach cornered decided to pull a fascinating move and he basically triggered a obscured part of the Israeli election law that denied anyone but a sitting member of the Israeli Parliament from running against him. And Netanyahu was not a sitting member of the Parliament at that time. So Barach wanted to shift the election from Netanyahu to running against Ariel Sharon. Sharon was 5 points behind
Barach at that moment. But when B. Netanyahu couldn’t run all of his support went to Sharon and Sharon who was considered a political dinosaur at that moment older, kind of has been in Israeli politics ended up winning by the largest landslide in modern Israeli history.

Sid: But you know as history will be recorded we’re going to see God’s wisdom for having Sharon in there. God’s wisdom for Netanyahu for not being in their right now but coming shortly afterwards. One of the things that you talk about in your book which is another intriguing subject and I’m really fascinated by this book “The Last Days” because it’s so Biblical and yet it’s the best seller is that you talk about the fanatical Jewish group that wants to rebuild the temple but there’s something in the way called in Islam “The Dome of the Rock.” (Laughing)

Joel: Right, right, well that’s right. I created a fictional group to do this I didn’t want to malign any Jewish group that honestly believes there should be a Third Temple. I believe the Bible makes it clear prophetically that there will be another temple. There’s no question about that, in Daniel and Ezekiel and elsewhere in Revelation. But this fanatical group extremist really is a terrorist group that I’ve constructed fictionally in “The Last Days” the temple mount the Italian has decided to force the hand of God which is always a mistake. And basically mount a terrorist operation to attack and blow up the Dome of the Rock and the Ox Mosque.

Sid: Do you realize if that every happended what would happen in the Arab world?

Joel: The implications are cataclysmic, I mean it would really trigger a Apocalypse of a billion Muslims just enraged and wanting Jihad against the Israelis’. This is why and I write about this in the novel that the Israeli’s defend the Islamic Holylites with their own lives because they know what would happen. Now I have no idea Sid, I really don’t know how God is going to orchestrate history in such a way that temple will be built. We know that it will be we just take that to the bank but there are some that would kind of force the hand of God through terrorism which is wrong and yet there have been several incidences like this over the last 20 years. And I write about another possible attempt and I wouldn’t doubt that that might happen in the next few years. Obviously I hope that it doesn’t the things that I write about I hope happen but things that could happen based on research and based on Biblical prophesy.

Sid: Well, unfortunately I believe these things are going to happen it’s just a question of when. But as sure as things are speeding up. What’s going to happen when…and this isn’t in your book. But what do you see based on everything the economy the United States?

Joel: Well, you know it’s not clear to me I’ll just be candid about that where the US fits in based on these coming Biblical prophetic.

Sid: Hal Lindsey tells me he doesn’t see the USA as a factor in last days events.

Joel: Well, this is the way that I think it’s probably going to play out. I’m not talking about Armageddon; I’m talking between now and the return of the Messiah and the rapture. And my sense is that the US will be sidelined politically. Like for example if Russia and Iran and Libya decided to attack Israel I’m not sure that the United States would step in. Look at the political fall out from taking down Saddam Hussein’s regime is there a political will if this were to happen in the next couple of years. Is there a political will in the United States to go to defend Israel from a massive multifunded attack from Russia a nuclear armed country, Iran which will be nuclear armed by the time they attack, Libya which is also developing chemical biological nuclear weapons are we going to go in there and defend Israel? There’s a lot of people that give speeches that they never again would we allow another Holocaust to happen but do you see political will in the country right now to go defend Israel under those circumstances?

Sid: Especially throw in a big economic decline in the United States hitting all at the same time.

Joel: But if the oil market from the Arabs got shot off, if their valve get’s shut off and oil embargo like 30 years ago 1973 that was sent into our economy that would sideline us.

Sid: Joel we’re out of time.