JERUSALEM, Israel – The battle over Iran’s nuclear program is reaching a critical point. With Iran nearing nuclear capability, U.S. forces massing in the region, and pivotal talks between the U.S. and Iran two days away, the stakes have rarely been higher.
President Donald Trump is trying to work out a deal where Iran would peacefully give up any efforts at developing nuclear weapons, but he’s making it clear that if a deal isn’t concluded, military action will follow.
Trump observed, “But with Iran, yeah, if it requires military, we’re going to have the military. Israel will obviously be very much involved in that and will be the leader of that.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced new sanctions on Iran on Wednesday to further pressure Tehran economically to derail its attempt to acquire nuclear weapons.
Yet, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian insists the regime isn’t even trying to make nuclear weapons.
“They have investigated this a thousand times, and they can come here and investigate again,” Pezeshkian stated. “We have not been seeking a nuclear bomb, and we will not be.”
However, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel told CBN News that Iran’s influence goes far beyond its nuclear program.
“So, Iran’s tentacles (are) spreading all around the world,” she noted. “What you’ve seen in recent years in the Middle East – as these are the result of Iran, the IRGC (Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps) – going into pockets of instability in the Middle East and expanding them, pushing their influence, funding them to actual terrorist organizations. And that creates major instability, major political influence, Iranian influence, and that turns the Middle East into a complete chaos.”
In a further assault on Israel, a leading Muslim scholar has issued a religious decree or fatwa. It declares that all Muslims must wage jihad against Israel to end the war in Gaza.
This decree, backed by 14 other prominent Muslim scholars, labels what Israel is doing in Gaza a genocide and calls for an air, land, and sea blockade of Israel. It also calls on all muslims “to intervene immediately – militarily, economically, and politically – to stop this genocide.”
CBN News talked to Mark Halawa, a Palestinian refugee who grew up in Kuwait and now lives in Israel, about where this fatwa could lead.
“These things, unfortunately, spill into terrorists attacks, God forbid,” Halawa said.
He added, “And it could be in Western countries, like people who listen to this kind of – the crowd who listens to this Doctor Qaradaghi. I call this another attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood, just like they have done before 1948, before Israel was a state, to move the emotions of Muslims and unify them around them and get their mosques packed.”
However, Egypt’s Grand Mufti, the country’s highest Muslim authority, calls the fatwa “irresponsible,” and he declared, “No individual group or entity has the right to issue fatwas on such delicate and critical matters.”
“(The Grand Mufti) said, ‘Whoa, whoa, one second: You cannot call for jihad. There are no religious foundations to call for jihad,’ Halawa explained. “Me, Mark – I cannot call for jihad. Why? I have to be a ruler, (an) agreed-upon ruler of a certain country, Muslim country, that was attacked.”
In the case of Gaza, Hamas attacked Israel first.
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Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Senator Katie Britt (R- Alabama) on Wednesday announced the results of the Senate’s vote on the confirmation of former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee as the next ambassador to Israel. “The yeas are 53, the nays are 46 – the nomination is confirmed,” she declared.
Huckabee is the first evangelical Christian to become an American ambassador to the Jewish state. The only Democrat to vote for Huckabee was Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, a staunch backer of Israel.
