President Trump detests “forever wars.” A perfect example is Israel’s 77-year-and-counting war with the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis – prodded, armed, and funded primarily by Iran. On June 10, he again told Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to “end the war” and avoid more death and destruction.
Two days later, Hamas terrorists murdered eight Palestinian aid workers from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the US-Israel organization that has distributed nearly 30,000,000 meals since it launched on May 26. The GHF replaced corrupt UN aid groups that let Hamas steal food and sell it at ridiculous prices, to feed and fund its terror operations and intimidate Gazans.
Hamas is still launching rockets, ambushing Israeli troops and civilians, planting IEDs, booby-trapping buildings, and refusing to return hostages or bodies. That’s after two decades and tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, plus suicide bombings, shootings, stabbings, murders, and maiming of thousands of Israelis. Families often had just seconds to reach bomb shelters before rockets and missiles struck.
The fundamental problem is that Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, Iran, and Qatar want a one-state solution – with Israel gone. “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” actually means: “From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, Palestine will be Muslim” – Free of Jews, Christians, Bahais, and Druze.
Hamas’s Charter is blunt. “Palestine … was seized by a racist, anti-human and colonial Zionist project…. The Palestinian cause [is the] cause of an occupied land and a displaced people…. There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity….
“Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea…. Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance….”
That theological, revisionist history is how Hamas justified its barbaric October 7, 2023, slaughter of 1,200 Israelis and foreign guest workers and kidnapping of 250 others. Hamas and Israel’s other enemies have no intention of ending the war, death, and destruction, except by eradicating Israel.
Hamas official Ghazi Hamad made that absolutely clear during an interview shortly after the massacre.
“Israel has no place on our land. We must remove that country,” Hamad said. “We will repeat the October 7 attack time and again until Israel is annihilated…. The existence of Israel is what causes all that pain, blood, and tears. It’s Israel, not us…. We are the victims of the occupation. Nobody should blame us. October 7, October 10, October one million. Everything we do is justified.”
But then came June 13. Maybe it won’t be a “forever war,” after all.
It was round five of negotiations, Day 61 of the 60 days President Trump had given the Iranian regime to agree to end its nuclear weapons program. For PM Netanyahu, it was a powerful reaffirmation of the post-Holocaust promise: Never Again!
Days after the mullahs’ latest promise to use nukes to terminate the Jewish state, Israeli jets, missiles and drones systematically eliminated Iran’s missiles, launchers, storehouses, factories, air bases and command centers; its military commanders, leading nuclear scientists and the mullah’s inner circle of advisors … and their successors; its ability to send overwhelming waves of missiles into Israeli population centers.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) jets bombed Iran’s propaganda ministry amid yet another live anti-Israel rant.
The IDF did it without American help, except for assistance in shooting down missiles aimed not at military targets but at homes, schools, hospitals, and cancer research labs.
Israel’s unprecedented demolition of the massive Iranian war machine began with its amazing intelligence network. Israel knew precisely where Iran’s generals and scientists were sleeping and meeting. It tricked the top military brass into attending a meeting, where they got blown up together.
Iran’s special anti-Mossad unit was led by a Mossad agent! Mossad units built drone and missile systems in Iran’s deserts to destroy radar, missiles, and launchers on command.
The IDF’s incredible exploding pagers caper will go down in history as but a small-scale prelude to what’s been done to the head of the snake of international terrorism.
Iran’s ayatollahs and various “international leaders” now reportedly want a humanitarian ceasefire. Trump and Netanyahu want to end the war and future threats, permanently. Unconditional surrender, as in 1945, Germany and Japan. As President Trump has frequently emphasized, he doesn’t want a ceasefire but a “real end” to both the war and Iran’s nuclear program.
What might come after that may be hard to predict. But the ideological, theocratic, tyrannical, genocidal regime must be replaced, without Iran descending into Libyan/Syrian/Iraqi chaos.
Israel was certain Iran was very close to enriching enough uranium for several bombs and assembling weapons. Its attacks were thus preemptive strikes against a regional and global power that has repeatedly vowed to eradicate Israel, and was getting ready to do so.
Failing to finish the job now – permitting these enemies of humanity to live, rearm, and fight another day – would guarantee that this forever war may pause but will soon erupt again, next time with nuclear weapons wielded by a regime bent on revenge.
The United Nations might condemn Israel yet again, more often than all other nations combined. European politicians might tell Israel to stop battling the Hamas-Hezbollah-Houthi-Iran axis of evil – thereby letting it continue the 1939-1945 Holocaust. Campus and street mobs might rage and riot over Hamas’s river-to-sea genocide. But Israel is resolute: Never Again means Never Again!
Ponder what this weeklong war on Iran has already accomplished, and could still accomplish:
* The military and political leadership of the top Islamist terror state has been decapitated several times over;
* Uranium enrichment terminated, with centrifuges, stockpiles, and bomb parts destroyed;
* No more rockets, missiles, drones, guns, money, or explosives for Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Houthis;
* Perhaps fewer Iranian drones for Russia to send into Ukrainian homes, schools, and hospitals;
* Averted risks of small nukes going to Iranian proxies, to detonate in Israel or elsewhere;
* Fewer Christians slaughtered by Iran-backed Islamists in Nigeria and Sudan;
Hamas is down to its last money, food, weapons, and diehard terrorists. Hezbollah told Iran’s mullahs it would not engage Israel in an additional warfront, because both Israel and Lebanon would take out what’s left of the terror group. The Houthis should soon lack the wherewithal to attack shipping.
The Abraham Accords may soon have new signatories. Peace, cooperation, and prosperity could come to a region that has fought and stagnated for over a century. Arab tribes and political-ideological factions will likely battle on, but regional wars and assaults on Israel could end or at least pause for many years.
It may be too much to hope for. But even a portion of these good tidings would be a previously unexpected miracle.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change, environmental protection, and human rights.