There is an enormous gulf between Washington’s discussions about what’s going on in the Middle East and what’s actually going on in the Middle East. The consequences of this disconnect are significant. In this week’s edition of the Action Update, we’ll discuss Washington’s fantasies, Israel’s reality, and the politics breaking American foreign policy.

The Fantasy

We do not know what the final governance of the Gaza Strip will look like upon Israel’s completion of operations there (more on that in a minute). But we are highly confident that the current discussions in the Biden administration on the future of Gaza and the future resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict have no basis in reality.

Untold gallons of ink have been spilled - and Lord only knows how much breath wasted - on discussions amongst the left-leaning foreign policy intelligentsia, led by the Biden administration, pushing the narrative that if Israel would just abandon the plan to destroy Hamas, the Arab-Israeli conflict would end, peace would reign, and unicorns would rule the skies (legal disclaimer: No unicorns were harmed during the making of this third-rate satire).

Here's what Team Biden needs to internalize: 10/7 was Israel’s 9/11; it will not become “Palestine’s” July 4^th. 

There will be no grand peace plan that comes out of this war. There will be no reward for the slaughter of Israeli innocents.

The Palestinian Authority has expressed solidarity with the 10/7 barbarians and maintains a bounty on the head of every Jew and Israeli through its “pay-to-slay” program. There will be no entity effectively hanging posters around town saying “Wanted: Jews, Dead or Alive,” put in control of Gaza.

The Reality

Israel is going to destroy Hamas, and while the price is heart-shattering, the IDF is gaining ground every day. Hamas has acknowledged that 6,000 of its terrorists have been killed - which means the number is likely at least double, but probably triple.

Moreover, having effectively rooted Hamas out of northern Gaza, Israel is methodically destroying Hamas in Khan Yunis – a densely populated major city in which Hamas has been dug in for years. In recent days, hundreds of terrorists there surrendered, and Hamas’s Khan Yunis Brigade was defeated.

Nonetheless, more than 130 Israeli hostages remain in Hamas’s captivity, the three ringleaders of Hamas’s Gaza operations are still in hiding, and Hamas remains a semi-functioning terrorist entity in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah. All indications are that Israel will launch significant military operations in Rafah in the coming days and weeks.

It’ll likely take several months, but when Hamas’s presence as an effective entity in Rafah comes to an end, Israel may be able to end major operations in Gaza. At that point, Israel’s primary focus will continue to be on returning hostages that remain in Hamas captivity and ensuring Gaza is not allowed to be reconstituted as a terrorist enclave.

In sum, the Jewish state will do everything in its power to rescue its kidnapped sons and daughters. Israel’s armies will achieve total victory over Hamas. And no adversary of Jerusalem will have a hand in ruling Gaza ever again. That’s the reality in case anyone in the White House wanted to know.

The Politics 

Alas, they don’t seem to be interested. The Biden administration seeks to ignore reality and push their fantastical peace in our time messaging because, at least in part, it appeals to the far Left, i.e. their base. In an increasingly polarized country, Washington’s wannabe Machiavellis are telling the President that appeasing the fringe anti-Israel left is necessary to securing a second term. Seems like bad advice but either way, if the President is heeding that advice – and it seems he is - who’s running the Democratic party: Joe Biden or Rashida Tlaib?

On the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue, Congress is not exactly putting on a master class in governance. Sticking with the Democrats for the moment, the far Left in the House is anti-Israel. It’s that simple. They do not believe the Jewish people have a right to exist as a people in their ancient homeland. But most Democrats don’t hold such views; most Democrats aren’t antisemites.

Most Democrats in the House would’ve supported a clean Israel aid bill at any other time, but it’s an election year and they don’t want the Republicans to have any victories, so when Speaker Johnson brought this to the floor, Democrats largely voted against it after President Biden threatened to veto it.

For their part, the first Israel aid bill the Republicans brought to the House floor contained unprecedented and bad policy, so it never went anywhere beyond a nearly party-line vote in the House. The second bill, interpreted by Democrats as partisan in its aims, failed to reach the two-thirds threshold required of bills brought to the floor under a House legislative maneuver known as ‘suspension of the rules.’

Since nearly the beginning of the war, Congressional Republicans have been focused on a multitude of issues, emphasizing different goals at different times, without any discernible strategy to advance legislation beyond their chamber. Tragically, these efforts all have three things in common: they’ve all failed, none of the failures are related to Israel, and yet all of these failures have prevented Israel from receiving much-promised, tangible American support.

Israel is facing a White House that has yet to accept that the Jewish state will be victorious over Hamas and Members of Congress who’ve allowed partisanship and personal animosity to cloud seemingly every one of their decisions. Such is an untenable situation. We look forward to our Congressional leaders fixing it. Anyone care to step up?

Sincerely,

The CUFI Action Fund Team