October 7th Was Designed to Stop the Saudi-Israel Deal — A Congressman Weighs In | The Brief

The number one goal was to make sure that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. Not only was it a major problem for our allies over there, but it was a problem for the United States because we have so many military personnel based over there. The number one goal is to make sure they don't ever have a nuclear weapon. So as we've gone into this war, obviously we haven't been able to, if you will, reason with reasonable people. And this regime doesn't want to make a deal. I think that's perfectly clear. As many times as the United States has been at the table and wanting to make a deal, this regime doesn't seem to want to make a deal. So in my opinion, it's up to the people of Iran now. Do they want to continue to live under this? Now, their problem is the second they protest, their own people murder them. Their own regime leaders murder them. So over 30,000 Iranians who have protested their government have been murdered or slaughtered in the streets. So it's a very touch and go. It's truly a day-to-day issue. I feel the Strait of Hormuz will be completely open here soon. I think President Trump is gonna use our military might to make sure that that happens. And then, again, we need proper people who we can negotiate into this conflict with in leadership because they're not in their leadership now. So let me just piggyback on that last point of leadership and the fundamental problems with negotiating with essentially Islamic fundamentalists is that you're negotiating with Islamic fundamentalists. In your eyes, will you say the MOU that President Trump and really Vice President Shady Vance championed, is that effectively dead, in your opinion? You know, you never know. Look, you have the best negotiators in the world, if you ask me, with Stiv Lukaf and Jared Kirshner involved with this on a day-to-day basis. Look on the Israel and the Gaza situation. How many people around the world said those hostages would never be returned back to Israel? And they were. So time and time again, people have counted the U.S. out or counted our negotiators out, and they've proven that they are correct and they're actually good at what they do. So I think as long as communication continues, we hopefully will see an end of the conflict sooner rather than later. Let me just ask you one last question on Iran specifically. If you can just walk me through this, why would the Gulf nations, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait, why would they willingly invest in Iran, which is the country that has been lobbying missile and drone attacks for months? I mean, do you think that's a realistic expectation from those Gulf countries? Well, I think, you know, they're questioning their involvement with Iran as far as being, you know, what I assume they consider they were an ally before this conflict, not so much now that Iran is now bombing their countries. So I think we're gonna see Iran secluded from the Middle East, from being friends with anybody else in the Middle East, especially now, and then we'll see after the conflict is over. Again, there's so many innocent Iranians, right, who live in that country, who want peace, who want democracy. You know, we're fighting for them. And so, you know, we certainly hope the conflict ends soon, we get a true regime change, and Iranians are able to live as freely as we are. Well said. Look, speaking of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the things he was working on was the Saudi normalization deal with Israel. You're obviously co-chair of the House Abraham Accords Caucus. And it sort of seems like October 7th was very much incentivized, for lack of a better term, because the Iranians, who of course fund their proxies, Hamas is bombing the Houthis, they did not want a Saudi normalization deal with Israel. So as someone who is the co-chair of the House Abraham Accords Caucus, as someone who has brought dozens of members of the House GOP to that caucus, can you just update us on what the future of the Abraham Accords looks like? Sure. Well, look, peace in the Middle East, that's our number one goal, right? We'd much rather have peace than war. That's everybody's goal. And so the Abraham Accords were a major component of that, of those countries over there in the Middle East recognizing Israel. And so, look, people have asked me all the time, is Israel safe to go visit to? And because of the Abraham Accords, I feel certain that with the removal of Hezbollah to their north, the removal of Hamas out of Gaza, and then these countries signing on to the Abraham Accords, we're changing the world. And we wanna change the world, obviously for the better, but we want peace in the Middle East. So the more countries we can get, now that it's been established of the countries who initially signed on to the Abraham Accords, we certainly want more countries to be involved in signing on to the Abraham Accords. So that is certainly one of my goals in Congress is to help promote that, and hopefully we're able to achieve that here in the next few years. You know, it's not just foreign policy, but also on the domestic front, we are seeing that the amount of American, particularly young Americans, who have a favorable opinion of the state of Israel has essentially taken a nosedive, particularly in the Democratic Party. I guess I'm curious, both on a political lens, and then also foreign policy, national security, what do you see as the future of the U.S.-Israel relation? Yeah, look, we always heard for a long time that there was stirring anti-Semitism across our college campuses. I think we saw it, especially in the last two years, kind of come to fruition. My personal opinion is it's truly just a lack of education. We need to do a better job of defining what Judaism is, what Israel is, what Israel stands for. Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East. There's no question about it. If you go over to Israel, every single one of their citizens, including the prime minister, want peace. They certainly don't want war. They don't want missiles shot at them from Iran. They don't want missiles shot at them from Yemen. And the worst part is, is when they're shot at them, they live their lives hearing warning signs to get down into bunkers. We don't realize what that's like here in the United States, but that's how they live in Israel. There was a threat to the North from Hezbollah, the threat from the South, from Yemen, and certainly a threat all over the country from Iranian missiles coming in to Israel, and still is. So they're still not out of that. So, you know, we just need to do a better job, in my opinion, educating the general public, especially our college kids, you know, about Israel, about how it's a pro-democracy country in the Middle East when so many other countries are not. And so I'm certainly focused on doing a better job of that myself. Well, thank you so much for watching. Make sure to like and subscribe if you have any questions, comments, or if you want to see a particular topic addressed, make sure to put it down in the comments and feel free to keep the conversation going through all of your questions or yellings or rants. Find me on social media, just type in ShabbosKestenbaum. You're not gonna find many other ShabbosKestenbaums, and I'm looking forward to speaking with you all very soon. Thank you.