Israel My Glory In Depth: Interview w/ Dr. Randall Price | May 16, 2026

Steve Conover: Thank you for joining us for The Friends of Israel Today. I'm Steve Conover, executive director of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. With me is our host and teacher, Chris Katulka. foiradio.org, that's where you can connect with us. We have over a decade of content on the site and it features Chris's teaching and amazing interview guests. Again, that's foiradio.org.

Chris Katulka: Steve, today is our Israel My Glory In Depth interview and I'll be sitting down with Dr. Randall Price to discuss his latest and timely article, Iran's Islamic Crusade from our latest issue of Israel My Glory Magazine, The Middle East Powder Keg. You're not going to want to miss this because Dr. Randall Price brings a wealth of information, not only about what's happening in the Middle East, but looking at it from a biblical worldview.

Steve Conover: We're excited to have Randall Price as our guest, but first in the news in a recent 60 Minutes interview, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took some personal responsibility for the security failures that allowed Hamas to launch its devastating October 7th attack. But he's not taking the fall alone. During the CBS interview, Netanyahu insisted the blame runs across the entire political and military establishment and said the country should be focused on what's happened since that day, not on what led up to it.

Chris Katulka: Well, Steve, here's my take. It was President Harry Truman who kept a sign on his Oval Office desk that read, “The buck stops here," meaning he accepted ultimate responsibility for decisions made by his administration rather than passing the blame to others. Well, Netanyahu is no different than Truman or any other leader. The real test for Netanyahu will be in the voter box later this year when the Israeli people choose to rehire him or fire him. 

Chris Katulka: Hi everybody. I'm Chris Katulka with The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry and with me today is Dr. Randall Price, he's the president of World of the Bible Ministries and also a board member here at The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, to talk about his most recent article in this issue called Iran's Islamic Crusade. It's going to be an incredibly important issue to deal with, especially with everything going on. Randall, great to have you on the program.

Dr. Randall Price: Thank you, Chris.

Chris Katulka: Randall, I want to dive in because in probably 1200, 1500 words, you covered the span of Iran's modern history. You covered a lot of the current issues going on, especially between Israel and Iran, and also even kind of hinting at things that might come in the future as well. But you kind of trace the hostility between Iran and Israel back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. So my first question to you is this, what do you see as the most important historical turning point that transformed Iran from a regional power into Israel's most ideological committed enemy?

Dr. Randall Price: I think we have to go back maybe right after the Second World War. You had America concerned with the Soviet Union and needing allies with the strategic area of Iran occupying right there with Russia. They seem to be the best allies. You have the Shah of Iran who was there at the time, he had a Westernized idea as Persia had from earlier times. And so that kind of relationship started. Israel became a nation and I think Iran at the same time was looking for some kind of relationship with a state that it could have some of its assets, Iranian assets, whatever the case was. But right after Turkey, around 1950, they were one of the first countries to recognize the state of Israel. It wasn't because they accepted Zionism, it was because they wanted these strategic assets, but that put them along with the United States in a favorable relationship.

That grew and because of the Western relationship, because of the oil from Iran that developed kind of a pipeline between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, there were good relations all around. Something happened though in 1953, which a coup, let's just say that there was an overthrow of the Shah. Some say it was a democratic election, but whatever the case was, a nationalist came in who was not favorable to Western values, to Western influence. And the United States and Great Britain stepped in at that point and helped overthrow him and put the Shah back in power. And that created for nationalists in Iran some bad feelings that kind of held in. So the next quarter century, we had a good relationship. When David Ben Gurion came, of course, started the state of Israel, he had a periphery doctrine in which he was looking for states that were non-Arab that kind of surrounded the ridges of the Middle East that he could have relationship with and Iran was one of those.

So this all formed this kind of alliance with the United States and then Western democracy in the Middle East Israel. But you had in 1979 an overthrow, a revolution, by the Twelvers, which is a very radical branch of Shia Islam. They were radical. They wanted to establish a theocracy. They wanted to completely overthrow all Western influence and ideals and they used politically the idea that America, particularly, but its ally, Israel, on its side, had helped in the past have this huge influence that corrupted nationalist ideals in Iran. And so they used that politically and came in and with their theocracy idea completely we had the capture of our embassy and they had immediately throughout the Israeli embassy turned it over to the PLO. All kinds of things began to change overnight. So this radical ideology, which according to their view, the final enemy of Shia Islam is Israel.

The antichrist comes from there. The final battle is Jerusalem. That the al-Mahdi or the 12th Imam must emerge in a time of chaos because what brings him into the scene to bring about the victorious conquest of the West and its allies for Shia Islam is chaos in the region. So these are the types of things they've always wanted to foment and keep going. Nuclear ambitions were just a part of this. That goes back to 1982 when you had the invasion of Lebanon. We would say Israel entered Lebanon because of the problems there with the PLO, but they saw a need to enter to that point and start creating proxy states, non-states, but proxies. And so they sent their Iranian Revolutionary Guard to go in and train the Lebanese to be Shia-trained party of God, which is what Hezbollah stands for. And that led to other proxies—Hamas, Islami, Jihad, others all in the region, the Houthis, all of them being supported by Iran with the idea of this great change happening.

Iran could not face an enemy like the United States, maybe not even Israel directly, but asymmetrically through different proxies all over the place creating chaos, constantly causing problems, trying to overthrow within all of these things the way they felt they could have managed this war. So I would say beginning in 1979 with the Shia Islam ideology based upon the unrest feeling about the Western meddling in their affairs combined to bring about this ongoing conflict with the West. It's been kind of covert, but it's been there all along and those who could observe these things could see how covertly they're working behind the scenes to bring about the destruction of Israel and America from the very beginning.

Chris Katulka: Hey, Randall, I'm interested to know the proxies, which we've known about now and especially have become more prevalent in the minds of the world, especially since October 7th with Hamas and Hezbollah, the Houthis, Islamic Jihad, I'm interested to know, not all of them would label themselves as Shiite Muslims. So it seems as though that at least when it comes to Israel's destruction, Iran is willing to work with even Sunnis for the common goal of eliminating Israel. Is that a proper statement?

Dr. Randall Price: Yeah. I mean, we've got a factor Iraq in here too. Iraq is Sunni—had an eight year war between Iraq and Iran. But Iraq was also, in other words, what Saddam Hussein was backed by Iran in its attempt to try to bring, they said, a six million man army against Jerusalem or whatever it was, they were allies. They were enemies, but they're allies. The enemy is my friend, that idea. But we all know that if they weren't at war with Israel, they'd be at war with each other. But Israel is the common goal because it's seen as the one thing dividing the ummah, the idea of a united Islam, whatever you want to call it. Islam felt like it dominated the Middle East at one point. It lost some of that dominance. Israel was considered an interference. It is something that divides the Islamic unity that's called for.

So whatever cost, whatever alliance is necessary to excise it from the Middle East and recreate this pan-Islamic unity that they want is allowed. So that's why they'll back other parties other than those loyal to themselves for the greater cause.

Chris Katulka: We're looking at what's going on today and my question is why was this the opportune moment for the United States and Israel? Something that I had heard, which was fascinating is usually when Israel fights a war, it's done against an enemy, it's all done in Hebrew, but this is the first time that they fought a war in English using Zulu time because they've been working for the very first time in direct connection with the United States. Why was this an opportune moment for the Trump administration and Benjamin Netanyahu to not just go after nuclear sites, but to literally begin to enact regime change?

Dr. Randall Price: Well, I think you have the idea of, no one wants a war of attrition in that region. It happened in Afghanistan, it's happened with the Russians, it's happened with so many. So the idea was when the attack happened on October 7th and Hamas was involved, it was a proxy of Iran, this was already part of a war that was started. Hamas from one perspective was overcome, but you still had Hezbollah. You still had the problem with Syria possibly rising. You had the Houthis and you had Iran. Having snubbed America, having continued with the subterfuge of continuing to develop nuclear arsenals, not just enrichened uranium, but actually creating long range missiles that would reach Europe and the United States, all of this was a fear. And then when you entered to negotiations, I think they knew those would be unfruitful, but they did it for public opinion to say we tried, but this is simply an extension of what Israel was already fighting.

If you don't solve the problem now, you're just going to have it later. Now, United States did not say regime change was their goal, but Israel stated it was theirs. I think the United States wanted to just let Israel do the regime change. That's a whole nother problem though. You can't just put in…who's going to actually do that? If you put another Shah in, is he going to be a lawyer or going to have people overcome him? It'll be another revolution. There've been people who've said this won't work unless you divide up the country. The country has so many multi-ethnicities that have grievances with Iran, like the Kurds. They've wanted a free Kurdistan and they're there and there's so many. So why not let them divide up this huge territory and govern independently and work on alliances with them? But you don't know. We don't know how that can be achieved short of boots on the ground going in and actually taking over a country or defections within the revolutionary guard coming in and now with the former protestors joining in and having a successful coup.

But for Israel to have the kind of peace and stability it is calling for, it has got to contain all of those insurgencies on its borders. It's got to take care of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran has to be contained. So what Netanyahu called an “existential threat”, he called Iran that from the beginning because back when we knew they had developed these nuclear facilities and Israel went and bombed them. But I mean, they said, "This is an existential threat. It's a threat to our survival.” Cannot allow these kinds of entities to exist with the ideology and chanting “Death to America, Death to Israel”, because we'll never be at peace. It'll be an endless war."

Chris Katulka: Randall, I saw an Axios piece recently that made me laugh a bit because it said that President Trump has an exit strategy for this war, but Israel is okay with living in the chaos. And I laughed at that because it almost deemed as though Israel living in the chaos was something that they're figuring out along the way when in reality, Israel has always lived in the chaos, which is the reason why I believe you're right when they say they're going in for regime change because that's really the only way to guarantee safety for the Israeli people.

Dr. Randall Price: Now, you ask, “why now?” Well, it's only now with the Trump administration and its close alliance with Israel that this was possible. Other administrations distanced themselves from Israel, sided, tried to bring about peaceful diplomatic relationships that were always one-sided and it hasn't been until Trump's second administration that he can take this side of Israel despite public opinion, despite all of the rise and antisemitism, despite all the anti-war, everything, and just do what needed to be done. I think he's committed. I don't think that the war is going to end, despite what we have right now at the time of this taping, we're talking about a five-day ceasefire in order to have negotiations, but the end game has not been achieved. And even if Israel allows the United States to go in and get the enriched uranium and try to shut things down, it doesn't prevent someone else coming in and someone giving them a nuclear weapon.

You don't have to develop their own. China could do that, Russia could do that, Pakistan could do that. There's all kinds of people who could give them that. So something has to change from what it is now.

Chris Katulka: You mentioned the critics of this war and I would even say the critics of Israel. There has been a rise of anti-Israel sentiment not only on the progressive left, but also on the right as well with voices like Tucker Carlson, Meghan Kelly, Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, who has a big following with youth who almost have, not just disagree with maybe Israel's approach, but have a disdain for the country as well, which almost seems to bleed into levels of antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people. How would you speak to this, especially for those people who are wondering right now whether or not Israel is doing the right thing and America's doing the right thing and pushing back Iran?

Dr. Randall Price: Yeah. I mean, it's hard to tell people, don't listen to certain voices who have been media personalities. Each of them have their own reason for doing what they're doing. There could have been a lot of latent antisemitism. I think there has been if people look at the backgrounds, the marriages, the other things that have taken place with people. But across the country, social justice has done a lot to move the previous generation to distance themselves from Israel. They look at this not for the reasons that exist. ”War is wrong. Anybody who would initiate a war or have a war is an aggressor, or in this case, the oppressor and all of the oppressed are the side we have to take. They're the underdog. They're the ones who should be …” And this is social justice. It's emotional, irrational, in one sense, not looking at the facts, not looking at the history, simply looking at the way things are and the way they think people should be.

So that's why the fact that America invaded to this point, America has to be bad, has to be wrong. And you have people calling it wrong because America did that. Well, America is doing the right thing to put down the bad guys. Why is that wrong? Hesitating would be wrong. Not doing the right thing would be wrong. But they don't look at it that way. And how you can say, why is it a regime that just killed maybe up to 40,000 of its protestors in vicious and violent ways? Why would you support them for any cause? There's as much as a million Christians in Iran that have been persecuted from the day they came to faith and a lot of them are among those protesters that were silenced. But how can you not look at this as a country that is itself ignoring social justice, ignoring any kind of reasonable ethics that we know and stand with it against your own country? But that's what's happening across the board.

Same thing with antisemitism. What has Israel done? What have the Jewish people done? If I had to be supported throughout history, it should be them. They're the ones that have been the victim, but this is what's happening. So anyone who wants to try to deal with this has to get their information from reliable sources. Unfortunately, if you're going to a lot of sources, I mean, we have social media with TikTok, X, all the others. There are good voices out there, but there's also very dissenting voices and it's going to be something that is almost impossible to champion. You're just going to have to pray that they find the right voices. Friends of Israel is one of those voices that should be listened to. They just have to hear it.

Chris Katulka: Yeah. It's interesting to me that many of these critics of Israel, which again blends into elements of antisemitism, they target. It's as if the entire problem with the world is the state of Israel. This tiny country, the size of New Jersey, is the problem with everything happening globally in the world. And it becomes their platform in order to get more clicks, more likes, more attention. And I think it just feeds their platform that they have. It just seems as though criticizing Israel is what pays for those things now and I'm hoping that that eventually ends soon. But that also in line kind of ends our conversation here with this last question. And I kind of saved this for last because Randall, you and I, when we look at what's going on in the Middle East and in the world, we look at it through a biblical lens.

We look at it through a biblical worldview. And one of the things I think that's been on a lot of people's mind, especially as we're talking about regime change and even the potential for the regime change to be more of a liberally-minded leader like Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince, if he comes in, he wants to make Israel an ally of future Iran. How do all of these pieces, and I know the dust hasn't settled yet, but when you're looking at Ezekiel 38 and Ezekiel 39, you're seeing this current Iran and Israel war going on. How do you see these events through the lens of Ezekiel's prophecy and maybe even beyond that as well?

Dr. Randall Price: Well, of course it's hard to get any clear timetable or frame because we don't know how things will be going. We have two clear anchor points in history and that's scripture. One is that all of the nations of the earth will be gathered against Jerusalem to do battle. So we know that ultimately war is not going to end and we know that from Ezekiel 38 that one of the allies of those who will invade Israel in the future will be Iran. So the war, though it may end to some degree and have some degree of peace and stability, that's the other part of the prophecy because Israel is at least the term is “at rest” or the term is “living securely.” The Hebrew term is betach, a term that means, in many cases, military security. Israel has the sense that they are secure. They have their own army.

They can defend themselves. They have nuclear arsenal. They're formidable. That could be one sense of dependence and confidence. But it seems that they're invaded at a time when around them there is a sense of stability or peace. They've always had enemies on every side, but this may be a unique time in history when that has stopped and the events that are happening right now could lead to that. If we have Israel able to secure their boundaries and overthrow certain governments that have been bringing about…at least for a time, they'll have that. Well, that may be exactly the time the Scripture speaks about because as we just talked about, we have almost on a universal scale, this growing antisemitism and accusation of Israel, not just the Jewish people, but the Jewish state. So that it's become the point of resistance for everyone in the world. Those two things go together in Ezekiel 38 and 39. An army that's going to attack and a time of relative peace.

There's also the other factor in chapter 38:11-12 dealing with “to go to capture plunder.” So there's some kind of assets that Israel develops or has that is strategically important. We don't know if the oil, Leviathan and Tamar and all these other things or some of the discovery or whatever may be one of those things that draws Russia in alliance with Iran and Sudan, I guess, or Yemen, something like that, some of these other allied countries together. So yes, we could be close, but no, we're not there yet. That's why we are careful to have the clear outline of Scripture, but to watch and weigh out the events that fill out that outline.

Chris Katulka: Yeah. I spoke with Joel Rosenberg. When the moving pieces are happening between the nations that are presented in the Gog and Magog of Ezekiel 38 and 39, you begin to wonder how all these pieces come together. And I appreciate what you said going back to Zechariah chapter 14 that really in the end, all nations come against Israel. Dr. Randall Price, thank you so much for being with us and we so appreciate you spending your time with us, sir.

Dr. Randall Price: Thank you, Chris. God bless.

Steve Conover: Thank you so much for joining us for today's episode of The Friends of Israel Today. We're so glad that Dr. Randall Price could join us. Chris, where are we headed next week?

Chris Katulka: Well, Steve, when I was in seventh grade, I walked during an altar call and accepted the Lord as my Savior and I did a prayer. Well, sometimes we read the Lord's Prayer as something very personal to us and it is, from Matthew 6, “Our Father who art in heaven.” But actually, I consider this Israel's altar call prayer. An opportunity for Israel to repent and to turn and to see exactly what God had promised them in restoration. So we're going to look at the Lord's Prayer, but we're going to put it in the context of Israel. That's going to be the next three weeks.

Steve Conover: We're looking forward to that, Chris. And as mentioned, our web address is foiradio.org. Our mailing address is FOI Radio, PO Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey, 08099. You can call our listener line. That number is 888-343-6940. Today's program was engineered by Bob Beebe. Edited by Jeremy Strong, who also composed and performs our theme music. Our executive producer is Lisa Small. Our associate producer is Sarah Fern. Our host and teacher is Chris Katulka and I'm Steve Conover, executive director of The Friends of Israel. The Friends of Israel Today is a production of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. Passion for God's Word. Compassion for God's Chosen People.