Huge banners have popped up on buildings along Tel Aviv's main highway thanking President Donald Trump for U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites at Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan.
"If the Iranian people were free, they would put these billboards up," Rabbi Steven Burg, CEO of Aish Global, told Newsmax on Monday. "Everyone understands that the people in charge of Iran are bad guys. They couldn't have a nuclear weapon. That was taken off the table.
"We're incredibly thankful because everyone has been talking about this for years. And finally, you had President Trump act."
Burg told "Newsline" about a video widely circulated on social media that showed members of Iran's Parliament burning the U.S. flag and chanting "Death to America." The video was made in 2018 after Trump decided to pull the U.S. out of the nuclear deal made by the Obama administration.
"This is one of the greatest enemies," Burg said. "They killed over 200 Marines in the 1980s while they slept [in a barracks in Beirut]. They're cowards. And I can't tell you how thankful the people of Israel are to President Trump. But the entire world is actually thankful, too.
"And [in] all those closed rooms in the Middle East, everyone is thanking him for taking a stand against Iran, the evil bullies of the Middle East. And what we're going to see here is freedom ring from sea to shining sea across the world as a result of these actions."
Iran has vowed to retaliate against the U.S. strikes. Indeed, it launched six short- and medium-range ballistic missiles at America's Al Udeid Air Base southwest of Doha, Qatar. Burg said he shares concerns of those that Iran might activate sleeper cells of terrorists who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration.
"We should be very concerned about sleeper cells because these are terrorists," Burg said. "They just happen to have a country, but they're really terrorists. And that's what they do. They basically [target] men, women, and children. That's what they did [to Israel on Oct. 7, 2023], and that's what they continue to do.
"And America is a very strong country. I don't think the rest of the world understands how strong we are, and we need every single American to stand strong and to go to these people that are waving Iranian flags [during protests], all these flags of terrorists, and say to them, you're not the majority here. You're an incredible minority.
"We're not going to let you get away with this. We're not going to let you support terrorists. … We don't let anyone come in and do evil to our people. We protect our people. And that's the way it's been for hundreds of years, and that's the way it needs to be for the future."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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