February 15, 2026
In December I wrote that Israel would stand strong in 2026. I did not write it as optimism, and I did not write it as a slogan. I wrote it because I had been in Israel during the war, not watching from a screen, but standing under the atmosphere of real threat. I was there when Iran sent around three hundred projectiles toward Israel. I saw the sky respond. I saw the stress on the ground. I saw the human reaction. But what I did not see was national collapse. I did not see the internal dissolving that happens to many countries under that level of pressure. I saw seriousness. I saw discipline. I saw a nation tightening instead of breaking. That is what I meant when I wrote that Israel would be strong in 2026. Strength is not the absence of pain; strength is what remains intact when pain presses you.
Now Netanyahu returns from meeting President Trump and speaks at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. That setting matters. It is not a rally. It is institutional leadership. He is speaking to people who understand alliances, diplomacy, power, and history. And his tone is not defensive. It is declarative.
When he speaks about Iran, he does not speak about slowing the program or managing risk. He speaks about dismantlement. Enriched material must leave Iran. There must be no enrichment capability—not a temporary stop, but dismantling the infrastructure and equipment itself. Ballistic missiles must be addressed. The terror axis must be dismantled. Inspections must be real, with no lead-time loopholes. That is not cosmetic diplomacy. That is structural.
At the same time, the world hears a different but aligned message from Trump. When Trump says publicly that he knows where Khamenei is, that he knows his location, that he is aware, that is not casual language. It is psychological pressure. It is the statement: you are penetrated. It signals that the regime is being watched, mapped, and boxed in.
I do not believe the United States intends to invade Iran. I do not believe there will be American boots marching into Tehran. That is not the model forming. The model being telegraphed is different. Israel executes. America backs. Intelligence depth. Aerial refueling. Strategic leverage. Economic pressure. Diplomatic shielding.
If diplomacy fails, I believe action—if it comes—will not be a prolonged theatrical war. It will be precise. It will be swift. It will be decisive, like a jaguar taking its prey. The prey does not fall because of spectacle; it falls because it has already been weakened before the leap.
Authoritarian regimes often appear solid, but they are brittle. They survive on fear and on the perception of control. When that perception fractures, cracks spread quickly. The inside weakens before the outside finishes. That is how empires fall. Rome did not collapse in one dramatic hour because an enemy suddenly appeared; it weakened internally first—through corruption, overreach, loss of cohesion, internal exhaustion—then the external pressures finished what was already compromised. Persia, too, fractured from within before it was overtaken. The outside does not destroy a unified empire. The outside destroys what is already divided. A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. That principle applies to churches, to nations, and to regimes.
When I look at Iran, I do not only look at missiles and centrifuges. I look at internal cohesion. I look at fear structures. I look at the projection of strength and whether it still holds. I look at whether pressure is being applied in layers—financial, intelligence, technological, psychological—and I see the direction: from within.
And this is not only political. Scripture speaks of Persia not merely as geography but as opposition. Daniel speaks of the Prince of Persia. That does not cancel geopolitics; it adds another dimension. For believers, this confrontation is not only military and not only diplomatic. It is spiritual. You confront intimidation in prayer. You ask God to frustrate evil counsel. You ask Him to expose hidden works. And then history shifts.
I was in Israel when those three hundred projectiles were launched. I saw not only Iron Dome interceptors; I saw a nation that refused psychological collapse and the God of Israel fighting for them in a natural way. There is something preserving that land that cannot be reduced to technology alone.
Netanyahu then turned to something equally important: economic endurance. He spoke of declining inflation and stabilizing interest rates during wartime. He spoke of strong investment flows. He spoke of cyber dominance, of AI cooperation with the United States, and of quantum development. He spoke of phasing out American military aid over a decade and transitioning from dependency to partnership. That is not the language of a collapsing state. It is the language of sovereignty.
He recalled that in 1996 Israel’s GDP per capita was around $17,000. Today it approaches $65,000. He projected a trillion-dollar economy within a decade. He proposed a ten-year drawdown of the financial component of U.S. military assistance. That is not anti-American. It is maturation. It is Israel saying: we can stand on our own, and we will invest alongside you as equals. We will build an independent arms industry. We will fight for ourselves. We will not be weak.
This is historical. It is the difference between dependency and partnership. It is the difference between a client state and a sovereign pillar.
Netanyahu also spoke historically about anti-Semitism and cycles of hatred. He reminded his audience that Jews in the diaspora were often prominent yet weak, and therefore prey. Israel is prominent but no longer weak. That is the turning point in Jewish history. October 7th was an attempt to repeat history. It failed because Israel is not weak.
Some call Trump the Antichrist. I do not accept that. Scripture shows that God has used rulers before—Nebuchadnezzar in exile, Cyrus in restoration—not because they were saints but because they played a role in a larger arc.
God can use unexpected leaders to move history to fulfill prophecies. The question is not personality; it is function. Trump is being used to set up a new order in the world that makes the return of Jesus quicker. He has broken paradigms and old orders. And perhaps he will put the old American dream of a tech map into action. I just know many people who were political prisoners in Venezuela are grateful to him. Brazil is waiting anxiously for freedom through Trump. Europe has woken up and is changing because of Trump. Even NATO is changing. This new anointed of the Lord is changing the world order, and Israel is taking the biggest part of the pie.
When I look at what is forming, I see Israel consolidating militarily, economically, technologically, strategically, and spiritually. I see a shift from dependency to partnership. I see pressure on Iran not through invasion but through layered weakening. I see the pattern of empires and the principle that internal fracture precedes external collapse. I see alignment that did not exist a few years ago.
That is why I wrote what I wrote in December. 2026 is not shaping into a year of Israeli diminishment. It is shaping into a year of Israeli consolidation. History is moving. The world is reorganizing around strength. And Israel, rather than shrinking under pressure, is standing.
And when we see all this unfolding—Israel consolidating, empires fracturing from within, alliances shifting, old orders breaking, and new structures forming—we do not respond with fear. We respond with awareness.
This is not about panic over the end of times. It is about recognizing that the return of Jesus is drawing nearer with every realignment of history. Scripture does not unfold in abstraction; it unfolds through nations, through leaders, through shifts of power and sovereignty.
We are not spectators. We are a bride.
And the bride does not argue about headlines. She prepares herself.
She keeps her garments clean.
She keeps her lamp filled with oil.
She watches.
She waits.
She prays.
Day and night.
If Israel is consolidating and empires are weakening from within, then believers must also consolidate inwardly. Unity. Purity. Clarity. No division. No compromise. A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, and the same is true for the Church.
We do not tremble at the shaking of nations. We understand it.
And together with the Spirit, we say what the Church has always said when history accelerates:
Come, Lord Jesus.
Maranatha.