Lindsey Graham and Benjamin Netanyahu (Screenshot)
Joel Rosenberg, All Israel News
July 12, 2026
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL – I’m in absolute shock that my friend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, has died so suddenly and unexpectedly.
He was only 71.
Fox News anchor Shannon Bream first connected us about 15 years ago at a little dinner party she and Sheldon hosted at The Monocle Restaurant on Capitol Hill for the release of one of my novels.
The Senator had asked Shannon to introduce him to me and she graciously agreed.
I was glad for the opportunity to get to know him, and thanked him for his passionate work to advance the pro-life cause and protect and strengthen the American military and care for American military personnel, their families, and veterans.
I also thanked him for his tremendous support for a strong U.S.-Israeli alliance.
He was gracious, funny, charming, and easy to get to know.
But he was also a man on a mission.
What he really wanted to discuss was the gravity of the Iran nuclear threat and my research on “Apocalyptic Islamism,” the genocidal brand of eschatology or End Times theology embraced by senior Iranian leaders.
He wanted to know what it was and why I believed this eschatology was influencing Tehran’s foreign policy.
He was already incredibly knowledgeable on the magnitude and seriousness of the Iranian threat.
But he was insatiable in his desire to learn more.
He was an Evangelical Christian from South Carolina, the heart of the American “Bible Belt,” so he understood the importance and power of faith.
Yet he was not well-versed in the extremely dangerous End Times beliefs of our worst enemies in the Middle East and was determined to learn everything he could.
That was one of the most interesting dinner parties I’ve ever attended, and through it we established a friendship and stayed in regular touch over the years.
I would occasionally visit and chat with him when I was coming through Washington.
We would also talk by phone when he was wrapping up a visit to Israel or traveling to or through a Gulf country and he would brief me, sometimes on the record but usually off.
We talked about his sense of what needed to be done to strengthen or clarify U.S.-Israel relations, or about the latest nuances of the Iran threat, or about how best to build upon the Abraham Accords to expand Arab-Israeli peace in the region.
When I was first invited to bring an Evangelical Delegation to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in 2018, Senator Graham was one of the first experts I called to get his advice.
Few American leaders spent more time with MBS than Graham.
They spoke often and candidly to each other.
The same was true with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Few Senators had a closer or more enduring friendship with Netanyahu than Senator Graham.
They, too, spoke often and directly with each other.
It was Graham who was personally – and tirelessly – working to broker an Abraham Accords deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
When I was invited last year to meet with and interview Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Senator Graham was one of the experts I called for his advice.
Over the years we talked about so many topics, including our Evangelical faith.
Yet more often than not we would discuss Iran.
In July 2021, we published this interview I did with Graham, “Sen. Lindsey Graham warns ALL ISRAEL NEWS that IDF may have to launch preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities soon.”
“The Iranians are progressing at a very dangerous pace” with their uranium enrichment and nuclear weapons development program,” he told me, adding that the Biden administration was not taking the situation seriously enough.
“The [Iranian] enrichment program has gotten stronger during this period of time,” he explained. “They’re increasing their enrichment capability to 60%, in order to get to 90% which is bomb grade. This is well beyond what the JCPOA limits were. And it seems to me that their program has matured in a very dangerous way.”
As a result, he said, Israel was in a very difficult position and might need to take preemptive military action on its own.
“There are certain red lines that Israel will not allow Iran to cross,” Graham told me. “And I’ve never been more worried about those red lines being crossed than I am right now.”
Graham added that if former U.S. President Donald Trump was still in office, and Tehran so brazenly pursued nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community, Trump would not have left the mess in Israel’s lap.
“I think President Trump unequivocally would have used military action to stop a nuclear armed Iran,” Graham told me. “And I think the Iranians knew that.”
In January of this year, we spoke again, though on deep background, and it was again about Iran.
I wrote this story for ALL ISRAEL NEWS, “Sen. Lindsey Graham lands in Tel Aviv with Israel on high alert against ‘ayatollah’s murderous regime’ – what’s his message to Bibi and the Iranian people?”
“Thank God for friends like Lindsey Graham,” I wrote. “The senior senator from South Carolina is not just an Evangelical Christian. A principled conservative. And a champion of the Reagan/Trump doctrine of ‘peace through strength.’ Graham is also one of the staunchest supporters of the U.S.-Israel alliance, while also being a champion of America’s alliances with moderate Arab states, and a passionate advocate for liberating the suffering citizens of Iran from the cruel tyrants of Tehran.”
“With the possibility of a massive missile war erupting at any moment, the senator flew all night from the United States and has just landed in Tel Aviv – why?” I asked.
“To meet with, encourage, and strategize with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. To show his solidarity with the Israeli people. To make it clear that ‘America First’ has never meant ‘America Alone.’ And to make it clear that President Donald J. Trump is not about to betray or abandon the hopes and dreams of the Iranian people.”
The last time that I saw and interviewed the Senator was on March 5, just one week after Operation Epic Fury began.
The meeting took place in the Senator’s office on Capitol Hill.
It was arranged and attended by my good friend, Chad Connelly, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, a friend and ally of the Senator, and a man who runs a network of 14,000-plus pastors called FAITH WINS.
It was a great meeting – the most encouraging I’d had with him in years – and involved and intriguing interview that we published on ALL ISRAEL NEWS and aired on THE ROSENBERG REPORT, my weekly prime time show on TBN.
I wrote two columns based on our conversation that I’ll share with you here.
“These are religious Nazis,” Graham said of the Iranian high command, “and they must be stopped.”
The Senator praised President Trump for having the courage to attempt diplomacy with Iran.
He also praised Trump for realizing that the Nazi-esque regime in Tehran had no intention of negotiating in good faith and deciding he had to use military force to end the Iranian nuclear and missile threat before it was too late.
“We have decapitated the mothership of terrorism,” Graham told me.
“Iran is sinking and the captain is dead.”
Now, Graham insisted, “we have got to finish the job.”
Lindsey Graham was a great Senator.
He was a serious Evangelical Christian.
A true American patriot.
And a true friend of Israel.
A true friend of the Arab and Iranian people.
Because he was a true champion of freedom and America First but never America Alone.
He will be missed.
But I look forward to catching up one day when we walk the streets of glory.
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