Joel Rosenberg: Charlie Kirk became the most effective young Christian champion for Israel of our time

TBN host and ALL ISRAEL NEWS Editor-in-Chief Joel Rosenberg dedicated a special program of THE ROSENBERG REPORT to highlight Charlie Kirk’s faith, his life, his legacy, and extraordinary reach and impact.

He opened the episode by asking, “How did Charlie Kirk become the most effective champion and defender of Israel and the Jewish people of any young Evangelical Christian in our time?”

Rosenberg noted that as an advocate for Israel who also fought against antisemitism, Kirk took the exact opposite stance of his good friend Tucker Carlson, whom he referred to as “one of the most dangerous, anti-Israel voices of our time.”

“Tucker and Charlie were very much on the same page in many ways, but Tucker went one direction – anti-Israel. Charlie stuck with his pro-Israel convictions,” Rosenberg explained. “And when it came to Israel and the Jewish people, I'm just telling you, I literally cannot think of anyone that was more effective in countering the ignorance of young people on college campuses and elsewhere than Charlie Kirk.”

Rosenberg shared clips of Kirk confronting what he described as the moral bankruptcy of many young people regarding Israel and its conflict with radical Islamist enemies.

In one exchange, Kirk challenged a British student who equated Israel with Hamas:

Charlie Kirk: “Let me ask you, in the conflict of Israel versus Hamas, who's the good guy?”

British student: “I believe both Hamas and the Israeli government are evil. There is no justification for the murder and mutilation of thousands of innocent people and children. There is no justification for invading hospitals, for bombing innocent populations and dragging out a war which is damaging Israel and the West. It's a moral truth.”

Kirk: “It was also a moral truth that the war started because 1300 Jews were killed and 200 were taken hostage… Hamas invaded Israel, deciding to go recklessly to music concerts, to homes, to kibbutzim and taking 200 plus hostages. They knew what they were doing in one of the most cloistered urban environments on the planet… The only entity to blame is the leadership of Hamas, not the Israeli government, for fighting this defensive war after they were invaded. There is a good guy and there is a bad guy… A child who knows that Israel is the good guy, Hamas is bad, has a lot more wisdom than a student like yourself at Cambridge University.”

In another moment on campus, Kirk was asked if he supports Israel. He replied simply, “Yes, of course I do. Everything that Israel does gets so hyper examined through this lens that no other country ever gets held to the standard of ever.”

He often addressed antisemitism head-on.

“It's easy to say, oh, the Jews won everything. If the Jews won everything, why is there so much antisemitism?”

And he criticized false accusations of genocide against Israel.

“It is an intentional provocation, and I find it to be repulsive. The overuse of the word genocide. Because when you keep on using genocide, you're basically trying to cheapen actual genocides that have happened the last 100 years.

He then asked a student, “Do you think that Israel is intentionally trying to kill as many people of Gaza as possible?”

When the student replied positively, Kirk further argued, “Well, they're not doing a great job of it because the population keeps on going up.”

Kirk frequently described his travels to Israel as life-changing experiences:

“The greatest trip I ever took was to Israel, and the second greatest trip I ever took was to Israel. And I've been there twice. I'm a huge supporter of the Holy Land of Judea and Samaria, and up against the terrorist organizations Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority on college campuses… I've probably spoken at major universities or states all across the country… and I am confronted many times by young Christians that believe that Israel is an oppressive apartheid state that basically should not exist in its current form.”

He continued, “And so, I am here to clearly communicate to you that we have to do a much better job of communicating… the geopolitical significance of the State of Israel.”

“The world is a better place because of the state of Israel. We have all three monotheistic religions represented in the Israeli Knesset and the Israeli Supreme Court. Israel actually expresses freedom of religion… If Arabs come into the Israeli-occupied areas, they're given benefits and rights to vote. You go into the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas you get your head cut off.”

Rosenberg said Charlie Kirk was “the most effective champion out there trying to help all young people, and particularly Christians, get it.”

He added that Israeli leaders across the board loved him and have been speaking out in recent days on social media and in interviews about their appreciation for Kirk.

One of them is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who told Fox News following Kirk's assassination:

“We are just heartbroken... myself, my wife, my family, my son – actually, in his 2019 visit to Israel – had lunch with him and his wife Erika. We’re shattered, first as human beings, because a great human being has been taken from us. And he was an extraordinary friend.”

Netanyahu continued: “He wrote me a letter on May 2nd this year. He said, ‘One of my greatest joys as a Christian is advocating for Israel and forming alliances to defend Judeo-Christian civilization.’ A few weeks before the tragedy yesterday, I called him and I spoke to him and I said, 'Please come to Israel.’ I invited him to Israel, and sadly, that visit will not take place.”

“But he was a defender of our common Judeo-Christian civilization. He was unbelievably excited to walk in the footsteps of Jesus here. He valued our bond between America and Israel,” the prime minister said.

Rosenberg concluded the episode with his personal reflection on Charlie: “Yes, he loved Jesus, King of the Bible. That's why, as an evangelical Christian, he loved Israel. His faith wasn't contradictory to his love for Israel. It's where his love for Israel came from. That's why it was so grounded.”

Unlike Tucker Carlson or others, Rosenberg emphasized that Kirk would not go in the direction of hostility toward Israel, “because his faith told him, starting in the Book of Genesis, how much God loves Israel and the Jewish people.”

“This is why I'm going to miss him,” he said.

Watch Joel Rosenberg’s full insights into the assassination of Charlie Kirk on the TBN website.

THE ROSENBERG REPORT airs Thursday nights at 9 p.m. EST and Saturday nights at 10 p.m. EST on Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the most-watched Christian television network in the United States.