Hamas’s massacre of more than 1,300 Israelis (a number proportionally equivalent to 60,000 Americans, twelve times more than 9/11), most of them civilians, including women and children, severely shocked not only the State of Israel but the entire world.
The terrible stories of survivors of the onslaught, which remind many in Israel of the Holocaust, and the horrible videos and photos published in the media and on social networks that seem to be taken from the atrocities committed by ISIS, have illustrated to the entire world the murderous and barbaric nature of Hamas, a terrorist organization that is widely supported by the Palestinian people, and not only in the Gaza Strip.
According to the latest Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll conducted by Palestinian pollster Prof. Khalil Shikaki at the end of last month, if elections were held in the Palestinian Authority, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would defeat PA President Mahmoud Abbas with a majority of almost 60%. In this context, there is no doubt that the massacre by Hamas of innocent people, whose only sin was that they were Jews, originated, among other things, from the education of hatred of Jews in textbooks in Palestinian schools, and incitement in mosques and in the Palestinian media.
Israel will succeed in defeating Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist organizations. There is no doubt about that. All that is needed for the Jewish state is continued determination, patience, and international legitimacy, which is currently abundantly granted to Israel by its friends in the world.
Hamas and the Iran-led axis of evil
However, taking a broad view of the event, it is essential to remember one fact that may certainly affect the future of the free world. Let the leaders in Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin not forget that Hamas is part of the “axis of evil” led by Iran. This axis also includes Syria, a country headed by a dictator who massacred hundreds of thousands of his people, and the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which took the state of Lebanon hostage.
Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the regime in Tehran has supported Hamas financially and militarily, support that has greatly increased since it took over the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007. Similar to the precise and advanced weapons that Iran has transferred to Hezbollah, which according to estimates possesses 150,000 rockets and missiles that cover the entire territory of Israel, Iran has supplied weapons to Hamas through the tunnels at the Rafah border, trained Hamas terrorists and given them extensive knowledge in hybrid terrorist warfare. Furthermore, as published in The Wall Street Journal, Iran was behind the murderous terrorist attack carried out on October 7, when its leaders even openly expressed support for it.
The leaders of the free world do not have to imagine what would happen if Iran had a nuclear weapon, which could not only harm Israel, but also Great Britain, Germany, France, and even the United States. They should simply understand that the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7 is only the prelude to the Iranian nuclear bomb that will fall on one of the European cities, which are within range of the axis of evil.
After seeing and understanding the brutal nature of the axis of evil led by the ayatollah regime in Iran, which is embodied in the murder of innocents with endless cruelty, there is no doubt that Iran must not have nuclear weapons. When Iran possesses nuclear weapons, it will be very difficult for the West to prevent brutal massacres against innocent people as happened in Israel. Western leaders must not fall into the trap that leading politicians in Europe fell into, including former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, who called the terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah “my friends.”
In conclusion, the Western world, which until now has been occupied with the terrible war in Ukraine, has recently not paid attention to a much greater threat in the form of radical Islam led by the terrorist regime in Iran. Using terrorism, the radicals in Tehran threaten all the countries of the region, which, as the Abraham Accords and the imminent normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia illustrate, simply want a better future for their children in the Middle East.
Just as the free world acted in the face of the Nazis, the same should be done in the face of the terrorist regime in Iran. Terrorists must not be appeased; they must be broken.
Hence, the first thing that countries of the enlightened world must do, at all costs, is prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Any nuclear agreement with the murderous regime in Iran only gives it more time on the way to achieving a nuclear capability, with the help of which it will be able to enslave all the countries of the Middle East, and after them the enlightened West. For the sake of peace in the Middle East, it’s time to stop the terrorist regime in Iran.
The writer is a research fellow at the University of South Wales, UK, and a research fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. He is the author of Israel: National Security and Securitization (Springer, 2023).