Proclaiming Justice with Laurie Cardoza Moore

Yoram Ettinger: Without faith, we are going to be rendered easy targets for our enemies. There is a huge lack of information about the nature of the world at large, the world outside the USA, certainly the nature of the Middle East, and in recent months, the nature of the Ayatollah regime threat to America.

Certainly, when you are divorced from reality, you tend to embrace alternate reality, and alternate reality is always self-destructive.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Welcome to Proclaiming Justice, a podcast from PJTN that focuses the light of truth on vital issues in today's headlines that impact every American. I'm your host, Laurie Cardoza Moore, founder and president of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, and I'm here to educate, motivate, and activate you to action. I want to arm you with the truth and the facts you'll need to fight and preserve our constitutional republic and uphold the Judeo-Christian values our nation was founded upon.

On this week's podcast, I have invited former US-Israeli ambassador to the Southwest, Yoram Ettinger, back on the podcast to discuss the long game and the conservative right. How a network of political Catholic integralists, Russian ideologues, and media provocateurs are systematically dismantling the evangelical foundation of the American right.

Ambassador, welcome back to Proclaiming Justice. It's always a great honor to speak with you, sir. I want our audience to understand that our conversation today is under the threat of war. Israel is still being attacked by Iran, by Hezbollah. I haven't seen anything from Yemen yet or from Gaza, but I'm sure they'll probably be very close behind once again.

This is an existential threat. Sir, tell our audience how you are doing, how your family is doing. We've been praying for you all, encouraging our government to stand solidly behind you, and it seems that President Trump is doing exactly that despite the pressure he is getting from the MAGA movement or the conservative right. Sir, please share how you're doing.

Yoram Ettinger: Israel has gone through a very unique experience which resembles the rodeo riders. We are now on top of a bucking horse once again. We know from the rodeo culture that you don't get off the bucking horse. That's the worst time to get off that horse, and we're determined to stay on top of that bucking horse.

This horse has been bucking since the first day of our independence, modern-day independence, in 1948. Since then, we have had a series of wars and waves of terrorism. But the fact which is well documented is that after every single war and wave of terrorism, the Jewish state surges to new heights.

In fact, if you look at the state of our economy today, 2025 was an all-time high year of overseas investments in Israel, mostly American investments in Israel. When some of those very prominent investors—whether it has to do with Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, or the major high-tech investment banks—when they were asked, "How come you invest in Israel at this stage of uncertainty?" their response was very simple.

"We want to invest when the valuation of the new Israeli developments are still low, because in a year or few years, the valuation is going to go up dramatically." One of those investors, the American billionaire Bill Ackman, came to Israel, in fact, a few months after the eruption of the October 2023 war, and he decided to invest heavily in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

He came back to Israel a few months ago, telling reporters that he made 280% on his investments at the beginning of 2024. This is a reflection of the energy displayed by the Israeli society and therefore by the Israeli technology or Israeli high-tech community and Israeli economy.

You look at the value of the dollar; the shekel, the Israeli currency, is at the strongest stage in relation to the American dollar. The Israeli currency has never been as strong as it has been in recent months. You look at the ratio of national debt to gross domestic product and you find out that our ratio of national debt to GDP is 69%. The US is 120%.

In fact, ours is one of the lowest among the OECD countries, the industrialized world. When you compare the Israeli GDP per capita, ours is higher than France and Germany and the vast majority of the European countries. The most fundamental element of the state of mind in Israel at this stage of the war when we are targeted every single day by Iranian ballistic missiles, by Hezbollah terrorist missiles coming from Lebanon, the shape of the Israeli society is as solid as it has been.

If an American would come to Israel at this stage and would not know that there is war, he wouldn't guess it. Talking and interacting with Israelis, whether you're left or right, religious or secular, conservative or liberal, the vast majority of Israelis have displayed a very special sense, a high sense of optimism, patriotism, and most importantly, attachment to our roots.

In a few days, we're going to celebrate Passover. Whether you're secular or religious, the vast majority of Jews in Israel are going to assemble around the table, and if not around the table due to the circumstances, we're going to do it via Zoom with members of the family interacting via Zoom.

Once again, we're going to retell the story of Passover, which is in many respects the foundation of the Jewish state, but also in many respects the foundation of the American culture, of the American political system. In fact, part of the legacy of Passover, which is the Exodus, most notably the Exodus, is engraved in the Liberty Bell.

I'm sure that almost every American has seen either the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia or one of the hundreds of the replicas throughout the USA. On the Liberty Bell, it is engraved: "Proclaim liberty upon the earth and throughout the world and unto all the inhabitants thereof." This is from the book of Leviticus, chapter 25, verse 10.

This is exactly what Moses has shared with the Jewish people on the way from slavery in Egypt back to their home in the land of Israel. Any American who steps into the chamber of the House in the Capitol building in Washington would see, facing the chair of the Speaker, the bust, the statue of the head of Moses.

If you walk into the halls of the US Supreme Court across the street from the Capitol building, you would see seven statues and engravings of Moses and the Ten Commandments. In many respects, this legacy has been the formula, or was the formula, that surged the USA to the highest level in human history.

It was the values inherited by the early pilgrims and then the founding fathers, shaped in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, which has made it possible, or which was the engine which catapulted the US scientifically, educationally, economically, militarily, agriculturally to the highest level ever in human history.

As an outside observer who notices the departure from the founding fathers' legacy, I am very concerned. In my mind, the more the population distances itself from the legacy of the founding fathers—which in many respects is Judeo-Christian values, the Mosaic legacy, the Exodus legacy, the Passover legacy—the more you distance yourself from that legacy, the more you distance yourself from the winning formula.

As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Why give away such a unique treasure as the legacy of the founding fathers in return for some very doubtful and probably self-destructive states of mind imported from various parts of the world?

Laurie Cardoza Moore: You bring up very important points, and this is part of PJTN's mission. We've seen how we have not educated our children accurately about our history. We haven't shared the Judeo-Christian values that America was founded upon, as you so eloquently stated. This is problematic. It's why we're losing our children to a younger generation.

In fact, there is a struggle within American conservatism over who's going to shape the future identity of the Republican Party. Ambassador, do you see this as a new struggle, and what do you believe is behind the movement? And why now?

Yoram Ettinger: In my mind as an outside observer, but very much in touch with the American culture, with the American public through three or four times a year annual visits to the USA—each one between two weeks and four weeks, literally from coast to coast and always a week on Capitol Hill—what I have seen is a huge void of information.

There is a huge void or lack of information about the nature of the world at large, the world outside the USA, certainly the nature of the Middle East, and in recent months, the nature of the Ayatollah regime threat to America. Certainly, when you are divorced from reality, you tend to embrace alternate reality, and alternate reality is always self-destructive.

One of the elements which has made me very confident in the future of Israel is the state of mind of our youth. When the war broke up back in October 2023, not only did regular soldiers report to their units—and as you know, in Israel everyone serves in the military, men for three years, women for two years—but not only did the regular report, but the young adults who serve in active reserve duty reported to their units.

300,000 of those reservists returned to Israel while the missiles were showered upon Israel. They flew to Israel, left their jobs, left their studies in American or European universities, stopped their traveling ventures around the world and came back to report to Israel.

The numbers were so overwhelming that the reporting to the units was 130%. Namely, 30% of those who came back had to return to their homes because there was no need for them. Again, we're talking about the very diversified population. A population that fights each other over ideology and over education and over justice and over sports or whatever.

But when faced with a challenge, an existential challenge, a war challenge, they all report to their units. The units are composed of a mixture. Left and right find themselves in the same special operation units. By the way, most of our combat pilots are very dovish as far as their worldview, very much left of center, but patriotism transcends all those ideological and political differences.

That comes back to Passover because every year, when we retell the story of Passover, as we do with the story of Purim and the story of Pentecost and the story of Tabernacles, the story of Yom Kippur, etc., we basically strengthen our roots. When the roots are very strong, the trunk gets stronger and the branches are much more apt to withstand very stormy weather.

It has to do also with US-Israel relations because that type of mentality has bolstered the capabilities of the Israeli society in all aspects, but especially militarily. As demonstrated last year in June when US and Israel jointly bombarded Iranian targets and as has been the case in the last two, two and a half weeks, once again US and Israel joining forces to try and uproot the Ayatollah regime in Iran.

The US has leveraged the very unique capabilities by Israel, most importantly the intelligence capabilities, which has performed miraculously in Iran, targeting scores, if not hundreds, of the leaders of Iranian terrorism, eliminating them during the initial days of the war.

Whether it has to do with our Air Force, which has become very special as far as surgical offensive against Iranian targets, certainly we wouldn't have been able to do that if our youth would not have displayed attachment to roots, patriotism, optimism, and most importantly, faith.

In Israel, you don't need to be religious to possess faith, and people know, left or right, that we don't have any choice but to stick to our faith because without faith, we are going to be rendered easy targets for our enemies. Maybe one more comment about the Israeli intelligence, which laid the groundwork for the current war against Iran.

A former chief of Air Force Intelligence, General George Keegan, said to the New York Times that if the US were to procure on its own the intelligence provided to the US by Israel, then the US would have to establish five CIAs. It seems to me that when you follow the current war, prior wars, when you are aware of the mountain of intelligence shared by Israel with the US on planned terrorist acts against the US on US soil and throughout the world, you realize that we indeed perform as few CIAs would do.

To put it in dollar terms, the annual budget of one CIA is around 15 billion dollars. Most of our listeners know that the US invests in Israel every year 3.8 billion dollars. From the intelligence aspect alone, we're talking a few hundred percent return on that investment. One CIA means 340% return on the investment of 3.8 billion dollars.

Anyone who questions why should the US invest in Israel, the response is this has been a bonanza-like investment for the United States. You know the American combat aircraft F-35 features prominently in the current war against Iran. Israel flies the F-35 in a much more intense manner than any other air force in the world, obviously because we're faced with challenges which are unequal to any other country.

That has led to Israel upgrading dramatically the capabilities of the F-35. Now, we received the F-35 back in 2018, the first country in the world to receive it for operational use. At that time, top American and Israeli experts lamented the future of F-35, defining it as an absolute failure and a sunk cost.

They urged Israel not to buy, not to receive the F-35 from the US. After a year, Israel along with the manufacturer Lockheed Martin together managed to overcome the technical and the mechanical glitches of the F-35. From 2019, a year after Israel received it and started improving it, the graph of exports of F-35 has zoomed upward.

Last year alone, according to Lockheed Martin, 40 billion dollars exports of the F-35. I don't think that Israel can claim 100% responsibility for the export of F-35, but certainly we are the only country in the world that has been using the F-35 on a daily basis under combat conditions.

Certainly we have been the only showroom of the F-35. No other country, not the USA, not any other country, has served as a showroom of the capabilities. Therefore, it's not 100% responsibility, but I think claiming 50% is a pretty conservative claim. 20 billion dollars, again, compared to 3.8 billion dollars annual investment, which erroneously is called foreign aid.

That's the highest return on any American investments. Certainly we have done similar things with the American F-16 and with the American F-15. Each one we have improved, sharing with the US manufacturer our improvements, leading to saving of megabillion dollars worth of research and development, increasing exports by megabillion dollars, expanding employment substantially.

The employment involved in the production of F-35, according to Lockheed Martin, has reached 290,000 in 2025. That's Lockheed Martin and the subcontractors. This is an increase of 35% of employment since the day Israel received the plane. Mind you, we receive from the US—and I would add with much gratitude—dozens of advanced military systems, probably more than 100 military systems.

Each one we improve by using it as a battle-tested laboratory. It hasn't only enhanced the fortune of the US defense and aerospace industry, it has also bolstered the capabilities of the US military because the Israeli Air Force works very closely with the US Air Force, sharing with the American colleagues the battle experience which is gained by Israel, which cannot be gained by the US because the US does not face the same challenges faced by Israel.

I can share with you a personal experience. A few months ago I met on Capitol Hill Congressman Don Bacon from Nebraska. Don Bacon is a retired Brigadier General, Air Force Brigadier General, who commanded an Air Force platoon in the Persian Gulf, US Air Force platoon in the Persian Gulf.

When I walked into his office, I said, "Congressman, I guess here I will not have to elaborate on the benefits drawn by the American Air Force through its association with the Israeli Air Force." The response was ear-to-ear smile and the Congressman Don Bacon said, "Mr. Ettinger, you said benefit? The word benefit doesn't start to describe the huge contribution made by the Israeli Air Force to the American Air Force."

Again, for obvious reasons, the very special battle experience by the Israeli Air Force which we have shared systematically with our American allies, the American Air Force, and likewise with other arms of the US military force. This has been a service which no other ally of the US has ever contributed to America.

To put it in perspective compared to West Europe: West Europe, their American military bases, about 80,000 to 90,000 American soldiers are stationed in West Europe. Every year, it cost about 35 billion dollars to maintain and operate. I'm not aware of very significant contributions by West Europe to American interest in recent years.

In Israel, we don't have American soldiers. We don't have American military bases. The US invest in Israel, not 35 billion as it does in Europe, 3.8 billion dollars. But when Israel launched the Air Force offensive against Iran back in June 2025 and obliterated the Iranian air defenses and disabled the Iranian Air Force, this made it possible for the US to launch its own offensive, bombing three major nuclear centers in Iran unimpeded by Iranian Air Force or Iranian air defenses.

It was unimpeded because the very special ally Israel provided that service. Britain couldn't have done it, France couldn't have done it, Germany couldn't have done it, NATO as a whole couldn't have done it, neither could South Korea or Japan. This is an example of the very unique capabilities of the Jewish state, and I would say largely because we pay much attention to strengthening our roots, strengthening our education.

This has made the Israeli military a formidable element just like it has made the Israeli economy a big-time success, and that has been in my mind the reason for the US in recent years to forge closer and closer operational ties with Israel. It serves the American interest, it serves the Israeli interest, and this is consistent with the shared Judeo-Christian values which have made our nexus very special.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Absolutely, and I want to thank you for sharing all of that information with our audience. We have failed, Ambassador, at educating our children historically, legally, biblically. Why do we stand with Israel? There are so many reasons, and you just named a couple of them.

But unfortunately, we have failed to teach our kids how to think critically. So now we have these young influencers—Tucker, Candace, Megyn Kelly, and others—who are pushing a narrative that they don't understand. You can present this information just like you so eloquently did for our audience, but you can present this information to them and they still are incapable of rationally, critically thinking about what you've communicated and how important that is to our nation and why does our nation have this relationship with Israel.

Yes, we benefit on so many different levels, militarily, financially, but what's so critically important is the Judeo-Christian values, the foundation upon which we both stand. Our two countries are unlike any other two countries in the world. So I want to thank you so much for sharing this information. We're going to have to bring you back on because there's so much more we need to talk about.

I hope that we can have you back on next week, sir, because we do need to talk about this movement within the conservative movement where we have these influencers who are turning against the traditional values our country was founded upon. Ambassador, is there any last comment you want to make before we sign off?

Yoram Ettinger: I would only resort to my many days I have spent in Texas, from the days I got my undergraduate there through the days I served as an Israeli diplomat in Texas. In Texas, they say two guns shoot longer than one, and I think this is the secret of US-Israel fighting together, standing together. When we join forces, we achieve much more than each one individually.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Absolutely, the evidence is right before our eyes. All we have to do is turn on the TV, go to our laptops, and read the information. It's a great honor, sir, to be able to unite with you again against this common enemy. I know my audience shares our values and again, I look forward to seeing you or being with you next week so we can continue this conversation because there is so much more that must be discussed. God bless you, sir.

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed this program. We're going to post this podcast on our website and all of our podcast platforms so that you can share this information with your family and friends. You're conservative, you hear the rhetoric, you hear the propaganda coming from Tucker and Candace and Nick and Megyn.

We need to counter the disinformation by spreading the truth. Speaking to people like Ambassador Ettinger is so critically important. As PJTN Watchmen, we have a biblical and moral mandate to stand against this ungodly rising Marxist and Islamist threat that is destroying our nation and other Western nations, threatening our Judeo-Christian values.

As a Watchman, you can sound the alarm by simply sharing this podcast with your family and friends. With your generous monthly donation, ladies and gentlemen, this is how we are able to bring interviews like this one to you. You can ensure that PJTN remains on the front lines and in the headlines.

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Thank you again for joining me on this edition of Proclaiming Justice. Please share this podcast with your family and friends. For more information about how you can get involved, please visit our website at PJTN.org. As a PJTN Watchman, you can help us keep up the fight to preserve our freedom for our children and their children for such a time as this.