I know that reading this, sitting in Maine in June, it’s hard to fathom threats of nuclear annihilation. Believe me, I would rather be sitting there with you right now, in the state I grew up in.

Instead, as a fanatical Iranian regime has launched hundreds of powerful ballistic missiles on the place I chose to call my home, Israel, I’ve endured a week of running to public bomb shelters at all hours of the day and night.

Its aim? To kill as many Israelis as possible. Iran doesn’t care who — Jews, Muslims or Christians will do. Every missile can take out an entire neighborhood. Thankfully, Israel has invested heavily, with the assistance of its greatest ally, the United States, in anti-missile detection and destruction technology. Only a handful of Iranian missiles managed to get through, and they were devastating. More than two dozen Israelis have been killed and hundreds of buildings damaged throughout the tiny country.

If the anti-missile systems weren’t operative, huge swaths of a population of 10 million would have been vulnerable to Tehran’s indiscriminate attack.

Some of you may respond: Why did Israel attack in the first place, forcing Iran to retaliate? Leave Iran alone and it will leave you alone.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has said in the past that Iran has amassed enough highly enriched uranium — enriched to 60% purity — to produce at least three nuclear bombs. With further enrichment to weapons-grade (90% purity) and weaponization, Iran’s “breakout time” could be reduced to mere weeks, even days.

A nuclear Iran wouldn’t use its weapons as a deterrent. The ayatollahs of this brutal regime have stated, again and again, that their aim is to destroy Israel, which they called the “little Satan.” Do you know who they call the “great Satan”? The United States.

The talks that were taking place between Iran and the U.S. were a delay tactic by Iran to drag Washington along to the point of no return. As the writer Peter Himmelman put it in an essay last week, “A genocidal ideology backed by nuclear capability is not a theoretical concern. It’s an imminent threat — not just to Israel, but to the region, and to the fragile idea of a civilized world.”

For that reason, Israel launched a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities and the heads of the branches of the regime leading the campaign to acquire nukes.

As the military historian John Spencer wrote last week, “Imagine if Operation Overlord in World War II began with the elimination of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the German High Command; Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS; Field Marshal Erwin Rommel; and the destruction of all of Germany’s air defenses, before a single Allied soldier landed on the beaches of Normandy. That’s not an exaggerated hypothetical. It’s a near-parallel to what Israel just did to Iran.”

Note that Israel did not target civilians, like Iran is doing, under the flimsy guise of saying they’re targeting military installations (with laughably bad aim). On the contrary, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached out to the Iranian people, saying: “Israel’s fight is not against the Iranian people. Our fight is against the murderous Islamic regime that oppresses and impoverishes you.”

Many Israelis are not fans of Netanyahu and how he’s handled the war in Gaza, sparked by one of Iran’s proxies, Hamas, which committed the worst atrocity against Jews since the Holocaust. But a majority of Israelis stand with Netanyahu’s decision to fight for Israel’s survival and attack Iran.

Those who deign to call it “Bibi’s war” – whether it be Sen. Bernie Sanders, Tucker Carlson, Rep. Ilhan Omar or Steve Bannon – are fueled by such a deep hatred of Netanyahu and disdain for Israel that they would prefer to side with extreme Muslim fundamentalists who cruelly suppress human rights and denounce the American way of life.

Although there has been lukewarm support amid the shortsighted condemnation of Israel by countries in the Middle East and Europe, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz got it right at G7 last week when he said, “This is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us. We are also victims of this regime. This mullah regime has brought death and destruction to the world.”

Israel is making the world safe from the Iranian threat, and enabling Mainers to enjoy their June. When this is over, I can’t wait to visit.