Memorials at the site of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, Israel, are shown on May 27, 2024. (Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg Getty Images)
The return of the hostages is painful and joyful for Israelis traumatized by the war. Reuniting those innocent people with their families brings tears of joy, knowing well the kind of torment, suffering, torture, and abuse they are experiencing at the hands of Hamas’s ruthless and ruthless captors. But it’s also a stark reminder of the scale of Israel’s failure and the desire to make sure that something like this never happens again. Trump’s “hell to pay” was a transparent message not only to Hamas, but also to all the world’s rogue actors. It was a manifestation of the new administration’s transparent ethical vision and its ability to distinguish right from wrong, a vision that has the potential to provoke a new long-term episode in this tumultuous and fickle region. A transparent line stretches between that and January 2020, when, under the leadership of then-President Trump, the U. S. military ousted Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Newly released records from the FBI prove that Iran was behind a potential assassination attempt on former President Trump. (Getty Images)
Soleimani, the architect of evil, guilty of the Islamic regime’s “Ring of Fire” doctrine, of encircling Israel with hostile forces, of adding Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and of supporting other nefarious terrorist forces, such as the Houthis in Yemen. Soleimani’s assassination sent shockwaves through the region and into the ranks of the Islamic Republic’s leaders, who vowed revenge on Trump himself and senior officials in his administration.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE OPINION FROM FOX NEWS In launching the barbaric and ferocious October 7 attack on Israel, Hamas leader Yahya Al-Sinwar hoped to see all elements of this “Ring of Fire” converge and attack to Israel with a preference to replace the Middle East forever. Four hundred and sixty-six days after the war, it is clear that the Middle East has replaced it forever, albeit in the opposite direction. Iran and its proxies have suffered significant setbacks. Hamas in Gaza has been decimated. The Assad regime in Syria was overthrown and a new president and a new prime minister were elected in Lebanon, both opposed to the will of a greatly weakened Hezbollah.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPIsrael is about to go through an excruciating period of seeing our hostages come back from the darkness of Gaza as we eagerly await the rest to return home.Yet, on the horizon, a new future looms: one of “hell to pay” for the Middle East’s rogue actors, enveloped by hope for peace through strength.
Shahar Azani is the former spokesman for the Israeli consulate in New York and a veteran Israeli diplomat. He is the executive director of the Book Family Foundation. I worked at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs for over years in Jerusalem, London, Los Angeles, Nairobi and New York.
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