Netanyahu: Israel’s Rising Lion
Netanyahu: Israel’s Rising Lion
In a televised address on June 13, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced: “Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival. For decades, the tyrants of Tehran have brazenly, openly called for Israel’s destruction. They backed up their genocidal rhetoric with a program to develop nuclear weapons. In recent years, Iran has produced enough highly enriched uranium for nine atom bombs. In recent months, Iran has taken steps that it has never taken before, steps to weaponize this enriched uranium. And if not stopped, Iran could produce a weapon in a very short time. …
“Eighty years ago, the Jewish people were the victims of a Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime. Today, the Jewish state refuses to be the victim of a nuclear holocaust perpetrated by the Iranian regime.”
I was stirred by Netanyahu’s action and his bold, aggressive leadership. In many ways, he is his nation’s “rising lion.”
What Israel did to neutralize Iran teaches all mankind powerful lessons about what it takes to overcome evil. And it is a specific reminder to those God has called to back His watchman work in this dangerous end time. To achieve what God wants us to, we all need the spirit of a rising lion.
Netanyahu the Watchman
Before World War ii, Winston Churchill warned of the rise of Nazi Germany. For 30 years, Netanyahu has unceasingly blasted warnings about the threat of nuclear weapons in terrorists’ hands. Both these men backed up warnings with actions. Both men rose like lions to attack the enemy.
I believe that just as God used the courage of Churchill to save Western civilization, God has used the fighting spirit of Netanyahu to hold off the atomic forces of evil.
In 1981, Netanyahu wrote International Terrorism. In 1986 he wrote another book: Terrorism: How the West Can Win. In 1995, he wrote Fighting Terrorism, warning of the rising threat of radical Islam. He also highlighted the dangers in the Oslo Accords and Israel’s peace process with the Palestinians.
Israelis, seeing the truth in his warnings, voted him into office in 1996. As the threats against Israel grew—ranging from Palestinian terrorism to a nuclear-armed Iran—the people elected Netanyahu time and again. In 2009, 2013, 2015, 2018 and 2022, he was the man they trusted most to safeguard their nation.
Netanyahu’s trumpet blast of warning was about the future, not just of Israel but of the West itself. He knew it was also essential to make Americans aware of the threat. To eradicate Iran’s nuclear ambition, Israel would need America’s backing.
Yet America was moving to empower Iran. In 2009, America’s new president, Barack Obama, pledged to fundamentally transform the United States and its relationship with the world.
In June 2009, Obama made this bombshell statement in Cairo: “No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons.” This statement would have been a jarring disappointment to Netanyahu.
At the time, I described that statement as “a signal to the world that America the superpower is dead! That means America has no right to forcefully stop Iran’s nuclear program, even though Iran is the number one terrorist-sponsoring nation in the world by far! But if the United States does not stop Iran, currently only one other nation will: Israel. And Obama also implied that the Israelis had better not bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities—or America will be against them!” (“How President Obama’s Cairo Speech Will Shake the Nations.”)
Netanyahu found himself alone, sounding the alarm on Iran’s nuclear program. He did this repeatedly in the halls of the United Nations, directly confronting Obama’s lies about Iran’s supposed moderation.
Still, he could not stop Obama’s pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran. Knowing that deal was deeply unpopular with the American people, he boldly addressed the deal in the most powerful possible forum: a joint session of U.S. Congress.
Invited by Speaker of the House John Boehner on Jan. 8, 2015, Netanyahu knew accepting the invitation was an affront to Obama. “It was a monumental decision,” he writes in his 2022 memoir Bibi. “This would not just be another speech. I would be going into the lion’s den in Washington to challenge a sitting American president. … The nuclear deal was Obama’s top priority. Blocking it was my top priority.”
Netanyahu and his advisers crafted a speech that would warn the world and make Iran the top foreign-policy issue of the 2016 election—the election that would bring Donald Trump to power.
As Netanyahu arrived at the Capitol on March 3, 2015, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer told him that he and Churchill were the only foreign leaders to speak before a joint session of Congress three times. Then Boehner pulled out a gift for the prime minister: a small bust of Winston S. Churchill. It sits in the prime minister’s office to this day.
“Iran’s regime is not merely a Jewish problem, any more than the Nazi regime was merely a Jewish problem,” Netanyahu warned Congress. “The 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis were but a fraction of the 60 million people killed in World War ii. So, too, Iran’s regime poses a grave threat, not only to Israel but also to the peace of the entire world.”
I remember thinking that speech was an epic moment in history. Here was a true watchman, warning the people just like Churchill had before World War ii.
I wasn’t the only one to make that comparison. The late Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post, “Netanyahu offered a different path in his clear, bold and often moving address, Churchillian in its appeal to resist appeasement. This was not Churchill of the 1940s, but Churchill of the 1930s, the wilderness prophet. Which is why for all its sonorous strength, Netanyahu’s speech had a terrible poignancy” (March 5, 2015).
Netanyahu also said, “The greatest threat to any living organism or nation is not to recognize danger in time. We have to not only recognize it, but recognize it in time.” His warning came with a time frame. Obama’s nuclear deal accelerated that time frame.
Netanyahu the Warrior
Winston Churchill did more than warn about Nazi Germany. He stirred up an offensive fighting spirit in Britain to confront it. “The offensive is three or four times as hard as passively enduring from day to day,” Churchill once said. “It therefore requires all possible help in the early stages. Nothing is easier than to smother it in the cradle. Yet here, perhaps, lies safety.”
Netanyahu embodies this fighting spirit. He has warned for decades that Iran is close to having a bomb. A major reason they did not get one long ago was Netanyahu’s lionlike fighting spirit. Even before Operation Rising Lion, he repeatedly confronted Iran’s nuclear program.
In 2005, before Netanyahu returned to office, the U.S. and Israel began working on Stuxnet, a computer virus to sabotage Iran’s enrichment systems. Once back in office, Netanyahu used the virus to cause approximately 1,000 centrifuges at Natanz to spin so rapidly that they overheated and self-destructed. Other lesser-known, less-destructive malware campaigns followed.
Between 2010 and 2012, five Iranian scientists were assassinated, several after magnetic bombs attached to their vehicles exploded. Most suspect that Mossad was responsible. In 2020, the mastermind of the whole nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed by a remote-control machine gun in an ambush near Tehran. These attacks took out key people at key times and dissuaded many others from working on the project.
There are also reports that Israel tampered with equipment shipped to Iran, sneaking faulty equipment into its nuclear supply chains.
In 2018, also under Netanyahu’s watch, Israeli agents infiltrated a secret warehouse in southern Tehran and stole 100,000 documents relating to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The truth Israel exposed helped persuade President Donald Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and helped slow Iran’s push for a bomb. Since 2020, Iran’s nuclear facilities have been hit by explosions, mysterious fires and drone attacks.
Netanyahu continued to demonstrate his lionlike offensive spirit after Hamas attacked on Oct. 7, 2023. Ever since, he has taken the battle to the terrorist states fighting to destroy Israel.
Hezbollah made the mistake of joining Hamas’s fight, and Netanyahu was able to wipe it out. Under his leadership, Israel invaded Lebanon, destroyed most of Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, killed its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, and embarrassed what had been considered the world’s most formidable non-state army—all in a matter of months. “We took out Nasrallah and his replacement and the replacement of his replacement,” Netanyahu bragged on Oct. 8, 2024.
The Israelis needed a strong leader who would really fight in that war, and Netanyahu delivered. He did nothing less than break Lebanon’s ties with Iran.
What he did to Hezbollah, he has now done, to the best of his ability, to Iran’s nuclear program, destroying much of its infrastructure, blowing up its missile launchers, and killing its top generals and nuclear scientists. Netanyahu has fought and won like no Israeli prime minister for quite some time. He has the will to fight, fight, fight for his nation.
That is the kind of leader you need in the fight for freedom! For the sake of his nation, I hope Netanyahu is around for a while.
The Lion of Judah
“When enemies vow to destroy you, believe them,” Netanyahu said in that June 13 address. “When enemies build weapons of mass death, stop them. … We have risen like lions to defend ourselves. Over 3,000 years ago, Moses gave the people of Israel a message that has steeled their resolve ever since: ‘Be strong and courageous.’”
He then quoted Numbers 23:24, which describes the people of Israel: “Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.” This prophecy was uttered before God gave Israel a military victory over the Midianites, but it is also an end-time prophecy about the Messiah’s return. Read in the next chapter, Numbers 24:17-19, about a time when Jesus Christ will return to defeat Israel’s enemies and sit on the throne of David forever (Isaiah 9:7).
The Jews are descendants of the tribe of Judah. God has used this tribe in a special way.
A specific prophecy in the Bible’s first book describes the main characteristics of the tribes of Israel “in the last days” (Genesis 49:1). “Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?” (verses 8-9). These verses give great insight into the Jews in the Middle East. God uses the phases of a lion’s life to describe them. God talks about a whelp, or cub, then a lion, which would be best understood as a violent young lion, and then an old lion.
The emblem Judah was inspired to use for its standard was a powerful lion. Historically, and even in our time, the Jewish people have exhibited many lionlike qualities. They can be ferocious and bold like a lion! Israel’s attack on Iran displayed those lionlike qualities before the world.
Verse 8 refers in part to the many benefits that Judah’s warlike qualities brought to the nation. It says Judah would have its hands on the necks of its enemies. God warns at the end of verse 9 that all should be careful not to rouse the lion of Judah. If he is at rest, leave him alone or you will provoke his wrath. Historically, this rousing, warlike quality gave security to the nation.
From Numbers 2:3 we learn that in the wilderness, Judah was assigned to take the lead in all marches. This was an impressive position of honor. Judah led Israel into the Promised Land, a type of the Kingdom of God. Judah received the first lot in the Promised Land.
Caleb, a great-grandson of Judah and one of the original 12 spies, had skill and mighty strength as a warrior (Joshua 14:11). And of course, the greatest Jewish warrior of all time was King David. There is no doubt he fought like a lion.
In Revelation 5:5, Jesus Christ is called “the Lion of the tribe of Juda.” There is something in Judah’s lionlike qualities that God loves. Studying the Jews’ lionlike qualities also helps us to better see the qualities of the real Lion of Judah—Jesus Christ.
The People’s Watchman
Study Ezekiel 33:1-6. This passage prophesies of the modern nations of Israel (predominantly America and Britain) being in a time of war, and the people setting a man as a watchman to warn them of dangers. Winston Churchill fulfilled that prophecy before and during World War ii. (Read how he did this in my free booklet Winston S. Churchill: The Watchman.)
Study that history, and you see what a fight Churchill had among his own people. He spoke out against a spirit of weakness, appeasement and delusion. It was only the shocks of Germany’s invasion of its neighbors that forced them to awaken and put Churchill into power. He found a way to overcome their weakness and rouse them to action.
The Lion of the tribe of Judah saved Britain in World War ii. The Western world could have lost everything, but God protected them! God prepared Churchill in a special way to stand in Hitler’s path of destruction. If Britain had lost to Adolf Hitler, that madman would have conquered the world.
Practically speaking, how did Churchill accomplish this? Opposition was fierce for years, and the nation wouldn’t arm itself like he wanted it to. The only real tool Winston Churchill had was “the roar of a lion.” He showed that a lion’s roar can work wonders! And he defiantly proclaimed that Britons would rather choke in their own blood than surrender to Hitler!
Look at the state of Israel today, and it is clear that Benjamin Netanyahu is fulfilling that role in the Jewish state. Yet he too faces terrible opposition both within Israel and abroad. He has had to stand up under withering attacks to keep warning and to defend his nation.
This man has saved his nation several times. He is an impressive example. He is one of the few leaders left in Israel with this lionlike quality. That is what it takes to be a watchman.
Benjamin Netanyahu is the “rising lion of Israel.” The world would be in a much more dangerous place without him!
It is a terrible shame that almost everyone hates him—even within his own country! His critics are blind to the terrifying dangers that Iran poses to the world!
The modern nations of Israel today are degenerate. How much do they talk about being like a lion, standing up and fighting? Churchill roused Britain in World War ii to never, never, never surrender! Where is that fighting spirit today? God has broken the pride of Israel’s power (Leviticus 26:19). Generally speaking, the nations of Israel have no boldness! They are not lionlike in standing up to other nations because they are not looking to God and they have no faith. Men like Netanyahu are rare.
God’s Watchman
Continue reading in Ezekiel 33. Beginning in verse 7 a significant change takes place—God says that He chooses a watchman to warn the people: “So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.”
This is an end-time prophecy: God has a warning for the modern-day nations of Israel, and He has commanded a man to deliver it!
This is an intensification of the events in verses 1-6. Prophecy shows that the threats facing our world will grow worse—and no political leader can solve them. Sadly, the nuclear apocalypse that Netanyahu is desperately trying to prevent will happen!
The world must be warned. God is trying to prevent worldwide genocide. “Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (verse 11).
The success that Israel has had with Operation Rising Lion is going to give way to the end of the watchman work of a man chosen by the people. Then there will be only one watchman message left—that of God’s watchman, before the worst suffering ever on Earth!
You Need the Lion
In Amos 3:4 God warns, “Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing?” The Lion of the tribe of Judah is roaring! How? A faithful group of people are delivering God’s message. Today, He roars through these people! But if we lack the spirit of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, we cannot do that.
After World War ii, one reporter said to Churchill, “You were like the lion of Britain.” Churchill responded, “No, I wasn’t a lion. But occasionally, I did get to give the roar.”
That is what those doing God’s Work must do: We have to give the roar!
That watchman and his supporters need much more lionlike boldness than even Benjamin Netanyahu has. Operation Rising Lion is just a taste of the lionlike aggression we need. God clearly says we must have the character, the strength and the boldness of the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
The people doing God’s work today must understand this deeply: Our leader is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He is strong. He is fearless. And this Lion must live within us!
This is what Judah’s standard of the lion teaches us. If we are to serve God and do His work, we must be empowered by the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He is the example we must follow (1 Peter 2:21). This is no average lion—this is the Lion of God, the Lion who created David and all of mankind! This Lion possesses real power!
We have to be like that lion to serve God and carry on His work! We must be as bold as a lion (Proverbs 28:1). The lion turns away from nothing; it never retreats (Proverbs 30:30).
We are out in the vanguard of mankind, leading the way to the Promised Land! We are going to lead the world with Christ throughout the Millennium and then lead with God the Father and Jesus Christ for all eternity!
To qualify for that role, we must be building that lionlike leadership today. You don’t naturally become a leader. You must pray, plan and work to build leadership. And you must follow the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
Those who follow that Lion today are learning and preparing to help Jesus Christ lead and serve mankind. Let’s take advantage of every opportunity to prepare to be kings and priests under the Lion of the tribe of Judah!
