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Source: https://www.thefp.com/p/douglas-murray-israel-iran-conquering?
Israel Is Winning
(Free Press) Douglas Murray - The attempted hijacking of a Flydubai plane en route from Dubai to Tel Aviv is a reminder that Israel and the West remain at war with Islamic radicals, and that it is a war we are winning. The online world is filled with shrill declarations that Israel has lost this war. But on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel and its allies have been winning the war on the ground even as they have lost the PR war around the world. The PR war matters. But it matters less than the war itself. Better to win the ground war and lose the PR war than the other way around. Piece by piece, the Israeli government took apart the Iranian axis. First, they took apart Hamas in Gaza, despite constant attempts to make them stop, which came not just from Europe but from President Joe Biden's White House. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran in July 2024. Then, while Netanyahu was in New York speaking at the UN, Israel bombed the compound where the head of Hizbullah, Hassan Nasrallah, and almost all his remaining senior colleagues were gathered. Two years into the war that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar started, the Israeli air force took out the majority of the Iranian regime's air defenses, then came back and struck thousands of regime targets, opening the route for American B-2 bombers to attack the main Iranian nuclear sites. Then the Americans and the Israelis returned. They not only targeted the Iranian nuclear program again but also killed the supreme leader. Everybody alongside and above Sinwar in the chain of command is now dead. Neither Hamas, Hizbullah, nor the Iranian regime has a noose ready to pull around Israel's neck anymore. A large share of the Israeli hostages were eventually returned alive. Three years ago, this set of victories would have seemed unthinkable. What happened in the skies above Saudi Arabia on Wednesday stands as a metaphor for three years of war. The Israelis saw an existential threat, took matters into their own hands, and decided their own course. The rest of the West will have to decide whether it will follow the Israeli model or let its own future be dictated by terror and the hijacking of its entire society.