Iran's arsenal decimated, but the war against the Jewish people rages on, Israeli minister Amichai Chikli warns

Against the solemn backdrop of Holocaust Remembrance Day and Israel's Memorial Day, the co-founder of The Joshua Fund and editor-in-chief of ALL ISRAEL NEWS, Joel Rosenberg, spoke with Israeli Cabinet Minister Amichai Chikli for a wide-ranging conversation about the war with Iran, the fragile situation in Lebanon, and the surge of antisemitism sweeping the globe. The interview offered a rare look at Israel's strategic assessment, and a sobering reminder that even in victory, the threats facing the Jewish people are far from over.

Chikli, who serves as Israel's minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, did not mince words about the Iranian regime.

"It is the Nazi regime of our time," he said, pointing to the regime's stated goal of annihilating the State of Israel and its decades of violence against its own people. When Rosenberg pressed him on how close Iran had come to possessing nuclear weapons, Chikli's answer was stark: "Extremely close. Several months."

The military campaign against Iran, he explained, achieved results that surpassed expectations. Every nuclear facility – from Fordow to Natanz to Isfahan – was struck. Approximately 20 of Iran's top nuclear scientists were eliminated, along with the senior military teams overseeing the weaponization program. On the ballistic missile front, the transformation was equally dramatic. Where Iran once produced dozens of missiles per month, Chikli said, "Now it is zero." Production facilities were destroyed, launchers were neutralized, and the sheer volume of missile attacks against Israel fell from hundreds in the opening days of the war to just 10 to 20 by its end. "The achievements are beyond imagination," he told Rosenberg.

Still, challenges remain. A significant stockpile of enriched uranium, enough for roughly 11 weapons, lies buried beneath mountain bases, and Chikli acknowledged it as "a major problem." On the question of Iran's future, he was direct: any ceasefire arrangement that allows the regime to claim even a symbolic victory would be dangerous. "There should be no surrender to this vicious regime," he warned, "not even in the smallest question."

The conversation then turned to what Rosenberg called Israel's "eighth front," the alarming rise of antisemitism worldwide. Chikli noted that 2025 was "one of the deadliest years in terms of lethal antisemitism incidents," citing attacks in Australia, England, Colorado, and Michigan. He pointed to radical Islamist ideology as the common thread, warning that political Islam's ambition is not integration but the gradual imposition of a parallel system of governance in Western democracies.

For Christians watching from the West, Chikli's message was a call to clarity: the same forces targeting Jewish communities are working to drive a wedge between Israel and her evangelical and Catholic allies. Standing together, he implied, is not merely a political stance but a moral and spiritual imperative.

Lynn put it simply: "Pray for the people of Iran and the people of Lebanon who have been suffering under evil leadership for decades. Pray that they will taste freedom and that they will come to know the living God. And pray for the believers in Lebanon and Iran to truly flourish and grow."

Click below to listen to the full interview on the ‘Inside the Epicenter’ podcast for The Joshua Fund.