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Trump Called Off the Biggest Attack Since WWII — Here's Why
August 11, 2026 · 29 min
Trump's massive Iran strike was already ordered — then Gulf Arab allies made one phone call. What they said changed everything. Here's the full story from inside Israel this week.
Series VFI News
Barry and Batya Segal are among Israel’s leading praise-and-worship artists, known for blending ancient Yemenite Jewish melodies with modern world music rooted
August 11, 2026 · 29 min · VFI News
Trump's massive Iran strike was already ordered — then Gulf Arab allies made one phone call. What they said changed everything. Here's the full story from inside Israel this week. ...more Show the full description Show less Trump's massive Iran strike was already ordered — then Gulf Arab allies made one phone call. What they said changed everything. Here's the full story from inside Israel this week.
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In this video 0:00 Trump Calls Off Major Iran Attack10:29 Missile Shortages and Shelter Security13:24 Gaza Tensions and Cafe Basimta Clashes21:03 Hope for Messianics and Survivor Joy26:03 Herzog's Stand and Closing News
Trump Calls Off Major Iran Attack 0:00 A large scale American military attack on Iran was called off at almost the last minute by president Trump, reportedly at the urging of Gulf Arab countries who are worried about the damage resumed hostilities would do0:12 to them. The move by Trump came after US embassies in the region, including here in Israel, had urged American citizens to be prepared to flee if things got really out of hand. Other big stories include the0:23 increasing persecution of messianic believers in Israel. Also making headlines this week was a fiery interview president Herzog gave to American media in a scorching heat wave. All that and much more0:35 is just ahead on this week's edition of VFI News from Israel.0:51 We'll start this week once again with a story about something that didn't happen. I am, of course, speaking about the attack that US president Donald Trump had reportedly already ordered to take place against1:03 Iran over the weekend, but at the last moment, he called it off. There were many signals in the days leading up to Sunday, including an official alert sent out by the United States embassy in Israel and the embassies in1:15 several other Middle Eastern countries, advising American citizens to be ready to leave the region at very short notice. The context, of course, is that in the past when hostilities have broken out,1:26 airports have shut down and even those which stayed open have operated at reduced capacity. But any American citizens in Israel who might have wanted to fly out had another problem. Ben Gurion Airport1:38 is currently hosting around 20 US Air Force refueling aircraft with another 10 scheduled to be deployed there in the near future. Now this was already having an effect on the airport's
1:50 ability to offer civilian flights in and out of Israel just as August, the month when Israelis like to take their summer vacations abroad begins. This is not by any means the main issue we're dealing with
2:02 this week, but it's something else to keep in mind as we talk about the broader effects this war is having on Israel's economy and the fabric of our national life. Now getting back to the alert that a lot of people were
2:14 getting ready to leave. Media reports indicated that the Israeli government was fully on board with the idea of hitting Iran hard and might have even been preparing to participate in strikes. We were also told
2:25 that this time, Iran was likely to fire more ballistic missiles and drones at us whether the IDF was actively participating in the strikes on them or not. It was a tense few days here. I can tell you that.
2:37 And here at Vision for Israel, we had our own plans in place for what we would do if this country once again came under fire. However, America's other regional allies, including Saudi Arabia,
2:49 Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain, were also very concerned about the possible consequences of a renewal of hostilities. They urged president Trump to give negotiations
3:01 1 more chance, again, apparently convincing him that a breakthrough was imminent, and so president Trump told reporters on Air Force 1 on Monday that negotiations would resume the next day,
3:13 adding that he was hoping for a deal as, quote, it would save a lot of lives. So we had an attack that would have been the biggest attack since World War 2, and it would have been disastrous for them. And they didn't
3:24 want us to do that, unquote. We were all set to go, he continued to say, at about this time right now, and it would have been a massive attack. But when the allies asked to call it off and the reason they did is because
3:36 they think there's a deal. There's a deal on Hormoz and there will be a deal on the denuclearization of Iran, end quote. Now this followed a social media post he had put out a few hours earlier
3:48 saying that he had agreed to Iran's request not to attack them. As he said, quote, for the future benefit of the world and likewise the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran to cancel
4:00 the attack subject to being able to rapidly make a deal. It's always that word deal that gets me. Well, it's important to point out here that Iran has flatly denied having requested that the
4:12 attack be called off and candidly, I think for once they might be telling the truth. This regime has a track record of believing their own rhetoric about being invincible. I think they probably believe
4:24 still that they're winning this war against America, and they're not afraid of anything Trump can do to them. They also don't care about the effects this war is having on the Iranian people, so to plead for mercy from
4:36 president Trump would have been very out of character for them. In any case, I guess we're now back to negotiations, which will probably go nowhere, just like previous rounds of talks have gone nowhere.
4:48 And aside from that, it's not easy making predictions about what will happen next. I can see things continuing for a while as they have been for the past several weeks, months, with rounds of strikes and counter
5:00 strikes occasionally flaring up, intersped with occasional rounds of talks. There are, of course, several things going on in the background which have an effect on the action at the front end of this
5:12 situation. 1st and foremost, the midterm congressional elections in the United States, and of course, we're also having elections here in Israel at the end of October. Now the price of oil,
5:24 and by extension, the prices that consumers all over the world pay for almost everything they have to buy is heavily dependent on events here in the Middle East. Now if consumers are unhappy about the prices
5:35 they're having to pay for things they need and want, they're unlikely to vote for the politicians that they think are responsible for the situation. Well, that might not be the way democracy is supposed to
5:47 work, but that's the way it often goes. And a recent Reuters Ipsos poll showed that only 1 in 3 American voters support this war against Iran. Many of the people who responded to the
5:59 poll said that president Trump has not explained the reasons for the war. And sadly, I must say that this is a legitimate point only from the fact that maybe social media
6:11 constantly disrupts what he's trying to share on social media. Who knows? I think he has shared it. It's a shame because there are many very good reasons that he could have given the American people to
6:22 explain why he is asking them to make sacrifices, including paying so much at the gasoline pump. But this has always been 1 of his weak points. Nevertheless, we're fighting
6:34 against a barrage of tidal wave of social media these days. Also weighing on decisions that president Trump has to make these days is the dangerously low levels of Patriot and THAAD interceptor
6:46 missiles that are available to the US military to defend against incoming ballistic missiles and drones. A large percentage of the Pentagon's stockpile of these defensive weapons have been expended in this war
6:58 against Iran as the US military has been defending not only Israel, but its Gulf Arab allies. And needless to say, they've also been defending themselves. There's also another factor in all of this,
7:10 and that's the ongoing war in Ukraine, where Russia is firing large numbers of ballistic missiles and drones at Ukrainian cities, while the Ukrainian defenders are rapidly running out of interceptor
7:21 missiles to shoot down incoming threats. Of course, in the back of everyone's mind is the possibility of war in the Western Pacific with China threatening to invade Taiwan. If that happens in the near
7:33 future, a lot of ammunition of all kinds will be fired off very quickly. Now this last week, Lockheed Martin, which manufactures Patriots, received a 58600000000 dollar order from the
7:45 United States Army. This gives you an idea of how urgent the need is because as the old Washington DC joke goes, 1000000000 here, 1000000000 there, pretty soon you're talking about real
7:57 money. Well, 58600000000 dollars certainly is a lot of money by any standard, and there's a lot of things the Pentagon would like to be spending money on these days. So if they're spending that
8:09 much on interceptor missiles, you know the need for them must be very urgent. Needless to say, here in Israel, we're also building arrow 3 interceptors in order to defend against the possibility
8:21 of future attacks by Iran or anyone else. Now interceptor missiles for the Iron Dome and David's Sling Systems, which have also seen extensive use in this war defending against rockets, drones, and missiles
8:33 from Hezbollah and Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, have also continued nonstop. It is 1 of the IDF's most closely guarded secrets how many of these defensive weapons are in the arsenal.
8:45 But having served in the IDF myself once upon a time, I can assure you that no matter how many they have, they would like to have more. That's how it always is with ammunition. You can never have too much, and usually,
8:57 you don't think you even have enough. And as they said in World War 1, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. Well, on that note, here at Vision for Israel, we're also doing our part to ensure that communities have
9:09 the bomb safety shelters they need to protect their residents against the threats from incoming missiles. We're also helping to equip security and firefighting teams and medical 1st responders. So if you
9:20 wanna know more about our projects, you can visit our website vision for israel dot com, and please watch this short video.
Missile Shortages and Shelter Security
10:29 Vision for Israel has been installing bomb safety shelters since actually around the fall of 2021. During that year, there was a barrage of rockets
10:40 that came into southern Israel, particularly by the terrorist group known as Hamas. And Israel had to find a way further in order to protect its citizens, its
10:52 residents across the southern part of Israel. And so we sprung into action. We felt like this was a project that we had a personal invitation to fulfill. And it's
11:04 important because when these projectiles, these missiles, these rockets, whatever that is that's, thrown at Israel by its enemies, there is not only the potential
11:16 for somebody being killed instantly, but also there's tremendous collateral damage and and people that get wounded even from shrapnel. And so if you place
11:27 a safety shelter at a bus stop or in front of a high school or community center or a kindergarten or any kind of facility that's publicly accessible, the people can
11:39 run into these shelters. The children can run and find safety in them and be protected from a rocket that lands and shrapnel is scattered, which could be mortally
11:51 wounding people. So it gives not only a physical protection of security, but also an emotional sense of security that you know having a shelter that you can run to
12:03 in the street, outside of a store, somewhere publicly accessible, not just in someone's home, but out in the open, gives a sense of security. And I always
12:15 believe that it's important for us to refer to scripture and Psalm 91, the whole chapter talks about, God providing us a shelter. And we have seen
12:26 amazing, amazing deliverances from enemy rockets as a result. And now we've installed over 400 shelters across the southern and northern borders of
12:38 Israel. And they weigh 30000 kilos each, or that's 30 tons. And it's a lot of weight on rebar and concrete that's been specially mixed
12:50 and also with a special metal ramp that allows physically impaired people to be able to come up in a walker or a wheelchair on a moment's notice. In many of these areas, residents
13:02 don't have any longer than between 5 seconds to maximum 45 seconds to get into a shelter to be protected. Welcome back, friends.
13:13 A moment ago, I mentioned Hamas and the situation in the Gaza Strip. Well, it's my sad duty to tell you that the reports that Hamas was ready to disarm and allow the Gaza Strip to be administered by the so called
Gaza Tensions and Cafe Basimta Clashes
13:25 board of peace were very premature. In the last few days, the IDF has been compelled to launch heavy strikes in the Gaza Strip in an effort to destroy stockpiles of weapons and ammunition that
13:37 Hamas has put together for the very obvious purpose of continuing their war with Israel when they think the time is right to do so. Once again, it's hard to make predictions about what might happen next in the
13:49 Gaza Strip, but I do feel pretty confident in predicting what will not happen. I do not believe Hamas will voluntarily disarm, and I do not believe that Gaza will ever be the Riviera
14:01 of the Middle East as some seem to think it has the potential to be. And for sure, I don't think there will be a golf course there either. Well, for now, the IDF controls almost 70 percent of the strip and the
14:13 majority of its 2000000 residents are crowded into the remaining 30 percent. That's rough. Ruled by Hamas and almost entirely dependent on them for basic needs like food and water,
14:24 electricity, and everything else. It's a bad situation, and candidly, I don't see how it's ever going to get any better because no 1 who has the ability to make a positive change has the moral clarity
14:36 to see that Hamas is the root of all the problems and must be removed before anything can improve. And as someone once said, free Gaza from Hamas.
14:49 Now moving on to another issue, a small cafe in Jerusalem, which I actually went to, has become the largest ground 0 in Israel's long running internal debate about what it even means for this country to be a
15:00 Jewish state. I am talking about Cafe Basimta, located in a small alley off Agrippa Street in Central Jerusalem. This establishment, by the way, is a project of Jews for Jesus,
15:13 a missionary organization which, to be perfectly candid, most of the rest of the messianic Jewish community here in Israel is not strongly connected to. Well, for better or for worse, they mostly do their own thing and
15:24 rarely tell anyone else what they're up to, and that includes this cafe that they opened here in Jerusalem and have had a decision that they made to have it open on Shabbat. Now despite what some people think,
15:36 there's no central committee of Jewish believers here which coordinates and plans these things. But the cafe has only been open for 5 weeks, and every Saturday for those 5 weeks, it's been
15:48 open and has been targeted for protests by ultra orthodox or Haredi groups. Now large numbers of secular Jerusalemites and from all over Israel have taken a stand in solidarity with
16:00 the cafe coming to buy coffee and pastries from it on Saturday. Now some have also confronted the Haredi protesters telling them essentially that they don't own Jerusalem, and they have no right to
16:12 tell others what they can or cannot do here. It was shaping up to be yet another flash point in the escalating conflict between the Haredi and secular communities in Jerusalem and Israel more generally
16:24 over this question. Then it started to become more generally known as that this cafe was owned and operated by Jewish believers in the New Testament, and there was a change in the tone of this debate. Some of the secular
16:36 supporters of the cafe had 2nd thoughts, and this was reported on in the media. That probably emboldened the Haredi protesters to try and escalate their protest, And this last Saturday, the
16:47 protests against the cafe were much bigger, and they included some outbreaks of violence in the course of the day. Haredi protesters clashed with secular patrons and with the police, breaking through barriers
16:59 police had set up and getting into shoving matches. It was a very sad and chaotic scene. I saw some of it on video from a friend of mine that lives there and has a balcony overseeing it. And it's also the latest
17:11 point of friction between the Haredi community and everyone else who lives in Jerusalem. Even many traditional or modern orthodox folks are having serious problems with these Haredi youth these days.
17:23 Another incident that illustrates this point is that this week, an Arab bus driver was minding his own business, driving his route, and a bunch of young men started pounding on the side of his bus at a stop. He
17:35 opened the door of the bus to see what was going on, and these young men started beating him up. He was beaten so badly that he actually lost consciousness for a few moments, and he had to be taken to the hospital. He
17:47 lost 4 teeth, and he still has no idea what he was beaten up for. None of us do, and it's making us all wonder who might get beaten up next for no reason at all. So that brings us
17:59 back to the protest at Cafe Basinta on Saturday morning, which also coincided with the solidarity visit by longtime Knesset member of Victor Lieberman, head of the right of center
18:10 Yisrael Beiteinu party. Standing just a few meters away from a police barricade behind which police and protesters were getting into a physical scuffle, Lieberman filmed the video in which he
18:22 declared that, quote, it cannot be that having a cup of coffee on Saturday morning turns into an act of civil courage. The vandalism we're seeing behind me, all of this just proves that
18:34 these guys need to channel their energy against Hamas, against Hezbollah, against the Houthis, but not here in Jerusalem against peaceful citizens. When we come to power, they won't have time to protest.
18:46 They'll all be running in basic training, unquote. Now I'm going to switch to commentary mode for a moment. 1st, to say the obvious. I doubt if Victor Lieberman is the greatest friend of Jewish believers, but
18:58 I do applaud him for standing up and protesting with us. He's just using this situation to try and get his voter base fired up by taking a shot at the Haredi community, which are
19:10 widely perceived by non Haredi Israelis as being unwilling to do their fair share of the work that needs to be done to make Israel a functioning country. That perception is correct, by the way. And Lieberman
19:22 actually is speaking to the frustrations that many secular Israelis have been in a situation which has been allowed to go on far too long. The war of survival Israel has been fighting for most of the last
19:34 3 years has seen IDF reservists mobilized for hundreds of days at a time because there aren't enough trained soldiers to deploy to all the active fronts. Now despite this, Haredi young
19:46 men continue to refuse to enlist. And lately, they've been turning out in large numbers for street protests demanding that things continue to be this way. This issue is likely to be a major factor in the upcoming
19:57 elections more so than it's ever been in any previous elections. This statement by Lieberman at the protest outside Cafe Basimpta is an obvious attempt to tap into that phenomenon. And as
20:09 I said before, get his own voter base fired up for the elections, and that's nothing we haven't seen before. But once again, I applaud him for coming out and protesting against this religious coercion.
20:22 However, the fact that this cafe is being defended by many secular Israelis despite the fact that it is now widely understood to be a project run by messianic Jewish believers is something new and different. Opposition
20:34 to the gospel has long been something that almost all Jewish Israelis could agree on, even if they didn't agree on much else. But now at least some secular Israelis are willing to publicly defend Jewish believers
20:46 against an attack by Haredi ultra Orthodox Jews. It's not the 1st time this has happened, but usually the solidarity comes after something has happened, not while it's in the middle of the happening.
20:58 I often say that I've never claimed to be a prophet, but I have been working in this vineyard called Israel for over 50 years now. And I am prepared to say that this has the potential to be the start of a major
Hope for Messianics and Survivor Joy
21:09 breakthrough for the kingdom of Yeshua the Messiah in this country. So please join me in praying for this cafe, the staff that's working there, and the entire household of faith here in this country.
21:21 We've been going through some rough times these last few years, but just like everyone else here has. But we've also also had our own unique challenges and problems. Amidst this, we're also seeing some really amazing
21:33 and exciting things. And if you read your bible, you know that it's always like that when God is on the move. However, as I said, we've been going through some rough times in Israel over recent years, and then there's no
21:45 reason to think it's going to get any easier in the immediate future, by the way. Many families and communities in Israel are struggling, and that's why here at Vision for Israel, we're continuing to provide assistance
21:57 to anyone who needs it. If you wanna know more about our projects, you can visit our website at vision for israel dot com, and please watch this short video.
23:12 For years, Vision for Israel has been hosting the Holocaust survivors and terror victims and widows and orphans and children at risk at high risk. And, of course, that after
23:24 the October 7th, people were really in distress. And a lot of the holocaust survivors, they had this kind of bad pictures from the past that would come back to them.
23:36 And many of them were having to deal with their emotional state of being in depression and being, you know, able to cope with the horrible tragedies that took place. So
23:48 we initiated to inviting them again to do these musical mornings. And what we do is we bring a musician, we bring food, they're doing dancing and everything, and it's
24:00 just a very light, enjoyable time. And I tell you, when they come to us, most of them are telling us that when they come, they just feel peace. They just feel joy. And they
24:12 said, you know, something is very special about your place. We just love coming to your place. Please invite us again. And it was like always repeating the same thing.
24:21 I think 1 of the great things about serving the Holocaust survivors is as they are getting older very quickly, 10 to 15000 of
24:33 the survivors are passing on into eternity every year. And so we owe a great debt to this generation of Holocaust survivors who we want
24:45 to keep their memories, their biographies, their history alive. And when we host an event for the holocaust survivors, I'm reminded of the words that I love so much.
24:57 In Job chapter 29 verse 13, it says, the blessing of a perishing man came upon me and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.
25:09 And whenever the Holocaust survivors come, many of them who are widows and widowers, of course, are these elderly women who love to dance, who
25:21 love to grab my arms and just swing me around. And I'm amazed at the energy that they have to dance and to sing and to have fun and to make the
25:32 most out of life, which I think is so rewarding, such a blessing for us. We've even been able to dedicate ambulances that we donated to the service of
25:44 Israel in order to make and uplift their own continents and happy to be part of something giving back to the community. So it really is a blessing and I think we owe the holocaust survivors a great debt and to keep their
25:55 memories alive. Holocaust survivors a great debt and to keep their memories alive. Welcome back, friends. We're almost out of time for this week's report,
Herzog's Stand and Closing News
26:07 so I'll just briefly touch on some of the other stories making headlines in Israel this week. President Isaac Herzog gave a wide ranging interview to Fox News over the weekend in which he blasted New York
26:18 mayor Zoran Mandani for his recent comments about Jews in Israel saying they were blasphemous, anti Semitic, and dangerous. To make a brief comment, although I agree with president Herzog,
26:30 and I have no love or respect whatsoever for Zorhan Mamdani, Mamdani, I am afraid, is leading a surging new force in American national life covering a range of political, cultural, and economic
26:42 threads. The so called democratic socialist of America, which Mamdani is a highly visible leader of, has made serious inroads into 1 of America's 2 main political parties. And the thing
26:54 that concerns me the most is that this group is very popular among young people. Now this is a problem that is not going away, friends. In fact, it's getting worse all the time. I know there's a lot on the plate of the
27:06 evangelical churches in the United States these days, but I urge you to make it a priority to pray against the spiritual forces behind this movement. Grassroots, political action campaigning,
27:18 arguing with people on the Internet and voting all have their place, but this is not primarily a political or cultural issue. It is at its root a spiritual issue, and it must be addressed using spiritual
27:30 tools. Another big issue in Israel this week, which is also an issue in many other countries and which I believe is also a reflection of the spiritual atmosphere in the world today is that we're baking in a terrible
27:42 heat wave. I'm baking in the studio, by the way. The daytime temperatures are hovering around nearly 90 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The fire brigades are on high alert because we've already seen our
27:54 neighbors in France, Spain, Italy, and even nearby Greece battling terrible fires this week, and we know we're vulnerable here too. Now we're out of time, but I want to continue the tradition
28:05 of ending the reports with some good news. So here it is. The Eastern European nation of Slovenia has a new prime minister, and he is undoing many of the anti Israel policies of his predecessors.
28:18 With that, I'm Barry Siegel, and this has been another edition of VFI News from Israel. God bless you and shalom. I miss all of you every week, so I'll see you again next week. Thank you.
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