Unless you spend time in Israel, you can’t really understand the intensity of the feeling around the hostages taken by Hamas.

I think that most other countries look at this sort of situation and think, “Okay, you have a terrorist group that took hostages. Are you really willing to go house to house for two years instead of just bombing the place in order to get those hostages out? Are you really willing to sacrifice hundreds of soldiers in order to protect hostages and try to save those hostages?”

The answer in Israel is yes. 

And this has been the scimitar hanging over the head of the Israelis. 

Since the very beginning of the war, Israel has had to stop and start the war half a dozen times. Israel has had to take measures that no sane country would have to take in order to try and ensure the safety of its hostages. Israel has had to move slowly and meticulously and risk the hatred of the world in order for those hostages to get out. 

Somehow, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was able to put together a deal in which the 20 living hostages came out all at once on Monday morning.

They were able to do that without allowing Hamas to fully reconstitute, while Israel is still present in 53% of the Gaza Strip.  Right now, the situation on the ground in Gaza is that Hamas is having firefights with a bunch of local militia groups over who is going to control Gaza next.

In the end, there will have to be some sort of heavy hand put on the remnants of Hamas, whether that happens from an international group in the way President Trump has discussed, or whether it happens via the IDF. We don’t know the answer to that yet.

 But what we do know is that Israel’s long national nightmare with regard to these hostages is now effectively over, because all 20 of them came out on Monday.

That is an extraordinary credit to President Trump and his team. And it catalyzed unbridled joy felt by all Israelis and Jews and good-hearted people everywhere — including the President of the United States —  over the return of the hostages. The Israelis thanked President Trump as he deserves to be thanked, putting out a gigantic display on the beach in Tel Aviv so President Trump would see it as Air Force One was flying into Ben-Gurion Airport.

In my synagogue, we have been saying a special prayer for the hostages every single day since the beginning of the war. It’s why you see all these yellow ribbons everywhere in Israel.

 When Jared Kushner thanked President Trump in Tel Aviv, the crowd went nuts. In Israel, the Trump administration has a 97% approval rating. There is no one in Israel — with very rare exceptions, typically from the radical Arab parties — that does not love President Trump.

Israelis have an overwhelming love for Donald Trump. It’s extraordinary. There were scores of standing ovations for President Trump in the Israeli parliament today. Even the leftists in Israel who don’t like President Trump love President Trump today.

When the Israel-Hamas war began, Israel was not just threatened from the Gaza Strip, where 1,200 Jews were murdered and roughly 250 were taken hostage into the Gaza Strip; Israel was threatened on its northern border by Hezbollah in Lebanon, a massively powerful terrorist group funded by Iran, run by Hassan Nasrallah. Syria was an ally of Hezbollah. Iran was threatening nuclear development. There was terrorism brewing in Judea and Samaria, the so-called West Bank.

But by the end of this war, Israel stands in a strong military posture with regard to the Gaza Strip, having completely destroyed every member of the upper echelon of Hamas. They killed Hassan Nasrallah and destroyed Hezbollah’s rocket capacity with an extraordinarily creative military action, including that famous beeper attack. They hit so hard that the Assad regime fell, thanks to the predations of Turkey pushing into power in Syria. And then Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, which involved the attacks on the Iranian nuclear facilities, capped off by President Trump’s attacks with B-2 bombers.

It’s been an astonishing turnabout. Without that happening, the hostages don’t come out because Hamas would have had that support level. By the way, the hostages probably don’t come out unless Israel also tries to take out the Hamas leadership in Qatar, sending the signals to Qatar that either they start to play ball or things might start happening in their country as well.

Whatever the rationale, the hostages coming home is an extraordinarily historic moment, a truly historic moment.

 President Trump has now transformed the region into a place where a lasting peace could be on the way, beginning with the Abraham Accords in his first term. And now, thanks to the penetration of Hamas, the complete hammering of Hezbollah, the killing of its leadership, and the destruction or massive setbacks to the Iranian nuclear facilities. 

In a truly moving and introspective moment, President Trump said, “I don’t think there’s anything going to get me in heaven. I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound. … I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to make heaven, but I’ve made life a lot better for a lot of people.”

President Trump wants to be someone who does good for people. With all of the riffing and the comedy that he does, in the end, he wants to be thought of as someone who did good for people. 

And he does. He does it continually. 

That is why he is a unique force.

And all of Israel sees him for the hero that he is.