At this writing 20 remaining living Israeli hostages have been released by Hamas. Thank God.

Twenty-four dead remain still to be released.

These of the 251 taken hostages on that infamous Oct. 7, 2023, day.

President Donald Trump is taking legitimate credit, thanks to his insurmountable will and prodigious negotiating skills, for this breakthrough.

But with all the joy, there remains the hurt and disappointment.

Disappointment that this could have happened two years ago.

For two years, a deeply confused and lost world has given credibility to the depraved Hamas terrorists and murderers as legitimate negotiating partners.

While hostages were still being held, pusillanimous leaders in France, the U.K., Canada and elsewhere called for a Palestinian state, thus justifying and encouraging the terrorists to dig in.

Immediately after the attack on Oct. 7, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres accused Israel of bearing responsibility. “It did not happen in a vacuum,” he said.

Guterres heads the organization that voted to partition in 1947 and create a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted the partition. The Arabs rejected it and then attacked the newly formed State of Israel. Yet, the U.N. secretary general sees Israel as the problem. Israel has not had one day of peace since it declared statehood after that U.N. partition.

The other day, Israeli press reported the suicide of one young man who was at the music festival that October day where Hamas murdered and committed atrocities against several hundred. The young man’s girlfriend was shot in front of him.

For two years, the alleged civilized world has treated these depraved murderers as legitimate negotiating partners with legitimate political claims.

Freedom House is a nonpartisan organization in Washington, D.C., that ranks nations worldwide according to political liberties and civil rights. There is only one nation in the Middle East ranked “free” by Freedom House — Israel (score 73/100). The U.S. scores 84/100. Yet, misguided leaders see Israel as the problem.

How about the countries that Trump has engaged to pressure for the release of the hostages and to start negotiations for a peace plan? Egypt, Freedom House score 18/100 — not free. Turkey 33/100 — not free.

Qatar 25/100 — not free.

Everyone looks to Saudi Arabia for cues on what to do. Saudi Arabia’s Freedom House ranking is 9/100.

Yet, when the Saudi prince sets a Palestinian State as the condition for peace, no one asks him what, in his view, that state should look like. His?

I recall my first visit to Israel years ago. I saw the plight and struggles of the Palestinian people and was struck at the great similarity between their situation and the economic and political realities in America’s inner cities.

I am talking about populations dominated by a political leadership who instructs them that they have no control over their lives. Their plight, they are told, is entirely because of injustices that have been inflicted by others. Meanwhile, the dismal state of affairs enriches this political leadership.

Hamas leaders are multimillionaires, billionaires — skimming off the riches of mega-dollars flowing from their enablers such as Iran and others.

Similarly in Washington, we have a political class for whom it is very lucrative to perpetuate the culture of blame and dependence and never-ending expansion of government largesse as the solution to all problems.

The secret for the Palestinians, which perhaps by some miracle they will grasp with emergence from this terrible period, is the country that they should emulate is the one that they have been taught to hate — Israel.

Israel is the model of taking personal responsibility for one’s future. It is the model of what happens when people respond to duress by moving forward with an insurmountable will to live and a will to create.

Willingness to admire and emulate success is what my friend George Gilder calls “The Israel Test.”

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