Events are unfolding very rapidly in the Middle East.

On Friday, Israel took out Hassan Nasrallah, who had led the formidable Lebanon-based Hezbollah jihadist outfit for over three decades—ever since he was hand-installed by Iran's Ayatollah Khameini in 1992. In eliminating Nasrallah and also nearly the entirety of the rest of Hezbollah's organizational leadership, Israel did the Western world a tremendous public service. Other than al-Qaeda, there is perhaps no terrorist organization with more American blood on its hands, going back at least as far as the twin 1983 bombings of the U.S. Marine barracks and U.S. embassy in Beirut, than Hezbollah. Israel soon launched a limited ground incursion into Lebanon—the first time Israeli troops have entered Lebanese soil since 2006.

Yesterday, the terrorist Iranian regime finally responded to weeks of merciless Israeli pummeling of Hezbollah—including the massive exploding pager/walkie-talkie Mossad operation that, in its own right, will go down as one of the most remarkable spy agency operations in modern history. Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel, thus reprising the mullahs' similar (but smaller) assault in April. As it was in April, Iran's attack yesterday was a spectacular tactical failure. Casualties, thank God, were extremely limited. Details are still emerging, but the United States Navy helped Israel intercept dozens of the missiles. Interestingly, one of the American naval destroyers involved in the missile interception was the USS Cole—the same vessel famously targeted by al-Qaeda 24 years ago almost to the day.

The question is now: What comes next? Friends of Israel and supporters of strong U.S.-Israel relations should be heartened by the reality that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was born for this moment. In fact, he has waited his entire political career for precisely this window of opportunity: Iran's Lebanon-based Hezbollah "insurance policy" is crippled like never before, and the massive Iranian missile barrage also ensures that Western leaders will consider some type of strong Israeli response to be morally and militarily legitimate. I predict that Israel will meaningfully target some of Iran's leading nuclear facilities, hit a sizable portion of its navy, and maybe, just maybe, actually go for the ayatollah's head itself. I candidly doubt that last part, but we shall see—these windows of opportunity do not arise frequently, as Netanyahu knows all too well.

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Our highlighted Newsweek op-eds from the past week includes selections from President Donald J. Trump, Dan Perry, Jason Greenblatt, Ericka Andersen, and Brandon Maly.

We will be back in your inbox next week. To my fellow Jews, I wish you a shana tovah umetukah—a good and sweet year. May there be only joy and peace, and not sorrow and war, in this new year.