Tim Barton

Welcome to the WallBuilder Show. You found the place where the culture and faith intersect. My name is Tim Barton. I am the president of WallBuilders. We are joined today by my dad, David Barton, the founder of WallBuilders, considered America's premier historian, considered America's premier historian author spoken all over the nation, and normally we have our friend, Rick Green, who is also with us, but Rick is not with us today. Rick is in the middle of doing a big event right now and actually has lost his voice, and so we said, hey, we will cover the program today. We fully expect you to be back tomorrow with a voice so we can pray for Rick that God will help his voice to get better and him to recover. But today we are really excited to dive into this topic stuff going on in not just culture but in the world, but very, very curious where this may go. We have a good friend, Rudy Atallah, who's going to be joining us shortly, and Rudy is someone who has a background in military very high levels. Uh, and and we know him more directly from his work with the Nazarene fund uh, things that he's done, uh, that we've we've partnered with Glenn Beck and Mercury one and, uh, we've been on the board over there helping navigate things and Rudy Atala is the guy that has been over a lot of that.

When there was the big debacle with the Biden administration when they closed down things in Afghanistan and the disastrous withdrawal, and we were able to work with so many incredible Americans raising money and helping rescue Americans and Christians and American allies and persecuted religious minorities that were abandoned by the American government, Rudy Atallah was the guy who oversaw all of those planes that were getting people out of Afghanistan. He was very engaged, involved with stuff on the ground and he just has such a good understanding of what is happening around the world as he's still very engaged in helping rescue people and not to divulge too much or give too much away, but he is very much in the know and so, dad, as we are looking now at stuff that's happened and I guess at this point,

David Baton

 yeah, but let me back up a minute because this was a really interesting thing.

You and I both are on the road a lot and I've been on the road in Illinois, in Wisconsin, in Michigan and doing a lot of campaign-type related things with pastors, getting pastors, churches turned out ready for the election. So our mind minds been all over the election, thinking about the election. Um, trump's second assassination temp still in the news. Everything's been going political in our world and suddenly today between two pastors conferences, my phone started blowing up and I mean I I think I have the longest text message. 

Tim Barton

Now, wait a second when you say blow up oh, it's not like blow up.

Like you know, a motorola phone over in the middle east blow up 

David Barton

no it's not that, but it my.

I have the longest text string I've ever had on my phone and it all came from Rudy and Rudy was just feeding me this, these clips, just as quick as they, and it's like, like what, what is this? And so I figured out what was happening and Rudy kept me posted on what was going over there, and then I started talking to pastors and others and they've been out and around all day, and so we have a meeting tonight and I don't think I found a single person who had heard what had happened in Israel, all the stuff with Israel and all the stuff with Hezbollah and all the stuff that's going with Netanyahu, and I was really surprised at the lack of coverage that it received, at least in this part of the country, and so pastors really didn't know. But this thing has become really big and, based on what Rudy sent to me, I don't know Somebody's got to tell me what this means, but I think this could be really really big.

Tim Barton

Well, and that's exactly why we asked Rudy Atallah to join us on the program, to shut some light. So, for those that might not know and I'm saying this because, dad you mentioned, the Trump assassination is still in the news Well, it depends on what news you're watching, because a lot of news outlets are not covering it. And, to that same point, there's a lot of news outlets that have not covered what's happened over in Lebanon, in Syria, with Hezbollah, with these pagers and these cell phones that exploded, and then so these Hezbollah leaders and terrorists and what's going on. And, as you mentioned, Rudy was the one telling us before it even broke in American news. He was already getting updates and reports from things that he was hearing over there, and so we are very excited to have with us joining us in the program today our good friend, Rudy Atallah. Rudy, thanks for coming on with us today. 

Rudy Atallah

Hey, thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

Tim Barton

Okay, so already we've probably done a little bit of a butcher job of trying to explain the bits and pieces of details, not just of your background, because we wanted to leave some of that mystery, but what's happened over in Lebanon, in Syria, hezbollah. Can you unfold what happened? What's going on? Why did this happen? Is this Israel doing it? Can you just walk us through the story?

Rudy Atallah

Yeah, absolutely Well. As everybody's seen through the news, since last year Israel's been engaged with Hamas in Gaza, the Palestinians in Gaza. Right now they're wrapping up major operations in Gaza, although they still have over 100 hostages missing and they're still looking for them. But the real threat now, and the bigger threat, is coming from the north, which is Israel's border with Lebanon, and over the past month the situation has been escalating, where Hezbollah has been firing a lot of rockets into Israel and yesterday, I think the day before, the Houthis, also from Yemen, fired a rocket that they claim was a hypersonic rocket that hit Tel Aviv. So Israel is in a multi-war front, but Hezbollah is the biggest threat in the north because they tend to have the biggest number of men troops and the Israelis know about that. Now, northern Israel because of the continuous attacks from Hezbollah, there are a lot of internally displaced Israelis and they can't go back to work. It's between 60,000 to 70,000 internally displaced Israelis and that's causing a huge problem for Israel. So the War Cabinet in Israel with Bibi Netanyahu.

David Barton

Would you define internally displaced? What do you mean?

Rudy Atallah

Internally displaced, meaning that they're not in their own homes, they have to go somewhere else and shelter, because they can't go to work. There's a constant, daily threat of rockets or drones or attacks against them, and so their day-to-day living has been disrupted and they have to move away to, say, Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or further away with other loved ones or friends or whatever, and they can't reside in their own homes because they live too close to the Lebanese border and uh, and they're in direct harm's way. Uh, that's basically what that means Internally displaced, as in not living in their, in their living in their personal home, but displaced away from their personal home somewhere else. So because of this, this has been going on and the escalation has been carried out. Over the past month or longer, the Israeli Air Force has struck multiple targets inside Lebanon and Syria, and then there's just been a tit for tat going back and forth. So finally, the Israeli cabinet, war cabinet, met and part of their objectives, or their goal, was basically to secure northern Israel once and for all, and the only way they can do that is to create a buffer zone, essentially invade into southern Lebanon and hold southern Lebanon, create a buffer zone so the people in northern Israel can can repopulate back into their homes and so, and then the Israeli military would be north of them, essentially creating that buffer zone, pushing Hezbollah which is Iranian backed, uh, you know out of and keep them at a distance where they are not harming Israeli citizens.

So today early morning I woke up six o'clock in the morning, my time, my, my, my teams in Lebanon were calling me and texting me frantically, saying pagers are blowing up everywhere, and I said, well, well, you're going to have to translate that to me because I don't understand what you're saying. They said, oh, Hezbollah, Hezbollah members, fighters are all, uh, bleeding. Their hands are missing, some of them are missing their eyes, their face, and um, yeah, I said, well, what is it said? They don't understand. But the pagers were all blowing up. Well, fast forward. Now, 12 hours plus later, I got the real story. Essentially, what happened is Israel, who is not commented on this attack.

Israel is preparing the battle space. In order to prepare the battle space, they've been systematically killing and targeting Hezbollah leaders, essentially the command and control structure of Hezbollah, so to weaken them. But today they went one step further. Hezbollah thought many months ago that their cell phones would be compromised, because Israel has been targeting a lot of Hezbollah leaders using their cell phones. They can track them in real time and then they would strike them with missiles from, you know, from drones or from whatever. So Hezbollah decided to go to pagers, which they purchased, and it is still not clear whether these are pagers that they purchased from Taiwan or from somewhere else, but it doesn't matter. Anyway, Hezbollah had these pagers and around 3.30 in the afternoon, Lebanon time, they all got messages for their beepers. So many of them went to grab their beepers to look to see what the message was, and then they all detonated beepers to look to see what the message was, and then they all detonated.

And so far, so far, the the the toll is about 4 000 Hezbollah guys that are seriously injured. Some of them have their hips blown, uh, with many holes in their hips. Some of them had the pagers up to their eyes, have lost their eyesight, many of them have lost their hands, um, you know, uh, so far we have 11 dead, 4 000 injured, 400 of them critically injured, 500 have lost their eyesight. So, and that not only happened in Lebanon, but it also happened to targets in Syria. So Dahyeh is the name of an area in Lebanon which is a stronghold of Hezbollah the hospital in Dahyeh, and then neighboring area called Nabatiyeh. The hospitals are full of Hezbollah fighters, bleeding, injured, whatever. They are literally saturated. So if they try to go to war right now, their hospitals are so overloaded they wouldn't be able to sustain any more injuries or any more attacks.

Tim Barton

Okay, rudy, I already want to interject because I'm already a little paranoid of the government's tracking capability of my normal phone and this idea. Now, as you mentioned, we don't know exactly if these were pagers, how they were manufactured, created, where they were purchased, and my knowledge of this only comes from movies, which, of course, is going to be super incorrect and jaded. But it makes me wonder is this something? Should I be concerned about the technology that I carry in my pocket, that I have in my phone? Is there a power surge that makes the thing blow up already? So that's kind of a side note that makes me a little paranoid.

But I can already hear people that, as Israel is going to be the one fingered for this, saying, hey, you guys did this, and because most people don't recognize who Hezbollah is, what they stand for, what their values are, what their mission is, what they're really targeting and trying to do, it falls back to Israel being the bad guy. So can you maybe give some context to it? Should Israel be criticized for this? Was this something that, for someone who, maybe with a military background, strategically you look and go, this was the correct move, or how do we navigate that? Not just as Christians, as Americans? What should we be thinking and feeling about what we are seeing unfold right now?

Rudy Atallah

Okay, so you have a couple of questions in there, so let me address them one at a time. First of all, from a technology standpoint, should you be worried being tracked?

Yes, your phone exploding Not really, however the 

David Barton

Rudy, I've got to say these are literally smartphones. They only explode if it's a Hezbollah fighter, it doesn't get anybody else. This is a phone that only recognizes who it's target. It's a smartphone. It literally is a smartphone it's a smartphone.

Rudy Atallah

well, in this case it was pagers, um, the, uh, the. The only plausible explanation so far is that, uh, israeli mossad intercepted these pagers that were being purchased, and right now they think that the manufacturer was a company in Taiwan and somewhere in between. They intercepted them and actually put strips of explosives near the battery cells, essentially, and then triggered them with a signal to the pagers, and they were able to do this in real time. Now, who is Hezbollah? Hezbollah's inception. Hezbollah came on the scene in 1982 during the Lebanese civil war. It is a proxy group for Iran. It is a formidable force. It's taken a lot of control in Lebanon and it pretty much runs a good portion of Lebanon. Even though Lebanon has 30% Christians, Hezbollah is Shia Muslim and their entire objective is the destruction of Israel and basically overtaking Lebanon.

So, from a military standpoint, this was a brilliant move by Israel, which should be lauded in every way possible, because what they did is they essentially prepared the battlefield by weakening the command and control structure and essentially weakening all the fighters on the Hezbollah side, the people that essentially count. The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon had a pager as well and he was injured, and some people think that also the senior leadership of Hezbollah was injured. Nobody knows if the number one guy of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, was injured. There were rumors that he might have been injured as well. So from a military tactical standpoint it was a brilliant move by Israel. It weakens them and if you look at the targeting specifically, the targeting was only Hezbollah fighters, without really injuring civilians, so the collateral damage almost was non-existent. A couple of little kids got injured, but for the most part, for hurting 4,000 plus Hezbollah fighters in a short period of time without injuring or having collateral damage, was absolutely exceptional. I don't think any military in the world can do what they did.

David Barton

So, if I read that right, this is the precursor to Israel moving in on them fairly rapidly, probably.

Rudy Atallah

Correct. I would say that there's a potential incursion that's eminent, although some experts one of my friends is saying that this buys Israel some time to essentially slow down a potential incursion. But Hezbollah has also proxy fighters in Syria now that were not injured. Some were a few of them, but not all. Other groups that want to join the fight now in Lebanon against Israel and they are pouring in.

Tim Barton

Okay, guys, we need to take a quick break. We got to come back and keep going to this, because people are going to accuse Israel of being the aggressor, and there's so much more to say to this. And just thinking through strategy, what does this mean for America? What does this mean, maybe, for oil and gas prices or grocery prices that are already outrageous? We need to come back to this. So, everybody, hang on, stay with us, We'll be right back on the WallBuilder Show.

Break

Tim Barton

All right, welcome back to the WallBuilder Show. We are here. This is Tim Barton, the president of Wall Builders. David Barton, the founder of Wall Builders, noted speaker, author, and our good friend, Rudy Atallah, who is here explaining some of what we saw in the news yesterday. We're hearing more about it today with what has happened over in Lebanon, in Syria, these pagers that have detonated.

Israel is kind of being fingered for this, which we think probably it is. But, Rudy, one of the questions we wanted to get into right before we had to take a break is I already hear people and we know this is going to come more and more that people are going to point at Israel and say Israel's bad, they're being the aggressor on this, Because it seems like anytime Israel does anything in response to these rockets, in response to what happens, the media doesn't cover all of the rockets and all of the attacks against Israel. They only cover any of Israel's response. So what would be maybe the best answer that we need to know, if we have to have this conversation with friends, some of our liberal friends, or whoever that might be that Israel is not the aggressor in this scenario. How would you explain that?

Rudy Atallah

Well, first of all, it was Hezbollah that was the initial aggressor, because for a long time now, Hezbollah has been firing rockets at Israel indiscriminately. If you remember, last month they fired rockets at a school, injuring a bunch of kids and killing some, so, so Hezbollah has been targeting Israel and finally, after multiple warnings that Israel gave that and even they told the Lebanese government you need to control Hezbollah. Make sure we don't have a repeat of 2006, where Israel had to invade into Lebanon to put Hezbollah on its back foot. So, essentially, Hezbollah did not slow down.

So this has been escalating for a while now, but what Israel did was taking a preemptive strike specifically on fighters, Hezbollah fighters. They were not targeting civilians. It's probably the most humanitarian military strategy that they can take, and I don't think there's any military in the world that can act in such a humane way as the Israelis have, especially in this instance, where you don't have any collateral damage, but only Hezbollah fighters were targeted. These are combatants who have been attacking Israel. So I would literally counter very strongly and say Israel had every right to do this.

David Barton

So let's look further down the road. Hezbollah is backed by Iran. If Israel goes after Hezbollah, what's Iran going to do?

Rudy Atallah

Iran is definitely going to take an aggressive retaliatory action, but remember that Israel also has an ally very close to Iran.

That's Azerbaijan. Azerbaijanis do not like Iranians, they detest them, and Israel has been, you know, a close friend with Azerbaijan. The last attack that Iran did against Israel with drones and rockets and missiles, Israel fired a warning shot from the neighboring country, from Azerbaijan, very close to the nuclear facility that the Iranians had, as a warning shot to let them know that they can retaliate. So essentially, this is a war that's been escalating and that was coming. Iran is definitely going to take some action. I think it would be very smart and something to watch that not only Israel, but the United States, hopefully, and other allies will also take an aggressive action against Iran to take out part of its nuclear facility or capability, because Iran is very close to having a nuclear weapon and if they do, they will create dirty bombs and they'll give them to some of their proxies, like the Houthis in Yemen or other proxies in the region, to attack Israel and create all kinds of havoc.

Tim Barton

Well, Rudy, even along those lines, not just Iran, but I'm thinking of Russia, because we know that. I mean Syria is different people. I've been firing Russian rockets, so on some level they're allies with the Russians. And then, of course, you have to think about the ties with China. I think Russia is probably pretty distracted because of what's going on in Ukraine. However, Putin is absolutely in favor of chaos wherever he can get it, because the more that other nations struggle, then by default he doesn't just try to elevate Russia, he tries to take other nations down because he thinks that helps elevate Russia on some level. So what do you think the odds are that maybe practical look at this that becoming some kind of a global incursion. And then what does that mean? Also for politics in America? You definitely feel like, if President Trump were there, that there might be less likelihood for some of these national leaders to maybe be on the aggressive. I think Trump would scare a lot of these people off.

Rudy Atallah

Yeah, 100%. So Russia has already been giving radars and additional missiles to Iran, and Iran has been working with the Russians, helping them with Ukraine, so with Putin. Putin would love a war in the Middle East, an expanded war in the Middle East, because oil and gas prices will go up and he is going to make a ton of money from it. So that's a positive for him. Plus, it distracts from what he's trying to do with Ukraine, um, but but also, yeah, China, China and in Russia and Iran are all working together. There's a. That's a huge cabal.

But for us policy it's going to create all kinds of problems because, first of all, oil and gas prices will definitely go up, gold prices will go up, the dollar will weaken and if we don't have strong leadership, that's not good for the US, especially with right now. If you look at, the dollar is strong compared to other economies around the world. Even though the dollar is weak, we can't export our goods the way we used to. It's going to cause all kinds of issues and problems for us in long term. But also it opens up a multi-front war for us. I mean, we have national security interests in the Middle East. The same way we have national security interests in Asia and Europe. So you know, at this juncture, our military is a mess, our politics is a mess and the more chaos that's out there, the worse it's going to be for the United States in the long run.

David Barton

So, rudy, a quick one for you Lebanon's your homeland, that's your family.

Rudy Atallah

I was born and raised there. Yes, sir.

David Barton

That's right. You're born and raised there. So this thing with Hezbollah versus Israel on the border, if they create a buffer zone there, what's it going to do in Lebanon? What's it going to do with the people in Lebanon? What kind of backlash happens north of the border?

Rudy Atallah

Well, north of the border, a lot of Christians want Israel to come in. In fact, many of them are very happy that if Israel comes in, they want to weaken Hezbollah once and for all, because the failed JCPOA that Obama started dumped so much money into Iran that Iran has been sending money to Hezbollah to purchase Christian land inside Lebanon. So the Lebanese want to see a weak Hezbollah. They want to see them out of politics. That's on the Christian side. So it gives Israel another ally internally that can't act to act a little bit more aggressively now and it hopefully opens up the door for restructuring of Lebanese politics essentially and then hopefully creating a bit more stability in Lebanon, not the region itself, because Syria is a mess and will always be a problem for Israel.

Tim Barton

Well, Rudy, we are running out of time but, brother, we love you. We're so grateful for you taking time to be with us. We definitely want to get you on and get more updates as this happens For everybody listening. I would encourage you. In Ephesians, chapter five, verses 15 through 17,. The apostle Paul reminded the believers see them that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. The conversation we had today is not something that we look ahead with fear and trembling. No, God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, a sound mind. But we want to make sure we walk in wisdom and that means maybe being prudent. Right, if you need to fill up that gas tank, get some groceries if prices go up. We want to be prudent, but also continue to pray for Israel. Thanks for listening today. We hope we will see you back and hear from us tomorrow back on the WallBuilder Show.