Nearly 150 days into the war in Gaza, Congress has yet to advance emergency military assistance for Israel. We are rapidly approaching the moment where Congressional inaction coupled with the Biden administration’s election season pressure campaign will make our elected officials handmaidens to atrocities. In this week’s edition of the Action Update, we’ll discuss the latest on the aid and Israel’s rapidly heating up northern border. But first, the Palestinian Authority is playing musical chairs again, so we’ll start there.

The PA: Two Decades of Terror

In a couple of months, the Palestinian Authority will turn 20. In that time, the PA had numerous reshufflings, and this week we got to witness yet another. On Monday, the Prime Minister and the entire Palestinian Government resigned – save, of course, its current President, Mahmoud Abbas.

In fact, the person in charge of the PA, has only changed once: with the death of terrorist and PA founder Yasser Arafat in 2005. Since then, Abbas has ruled the PA from his $13 million mansion, and he will continue to do so, no matter which of the many pro-terror Palestinian politicians holds office in the PA’s Government.

In his resignation letter, soon-to-be former Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh called for a Palestinian unity government, which would of course include Hamas.

The PA actively supports terror, and while they hide their religious zeal better than Hamas, they do share the same tactics (terror) and goals (destruction of Israel). It’s no surprise then, that Abbas (and he’s the one calling the shots) is rearranging his politburo. It’s also completely irrelevant to what will happen in Gaza after the war. There will be no Hamas, and there will be no pro-terror PA running the Gaza Strip.

The Biden Administration’s effort to “revitalize” what is essentially a morbid bound terrorist bureaucracy is destined to fail when a new round of musical chairs plays the same old “death to Israel” soundtrack. 

Hezbollah’s Dangerous Game

As the war continues in Gaza, Hezbollah has been playing an ever more perilous and increasingly high-stakes game of trying to distract and weaken Israel, while avoiding a full-scale war.

Here’s how it works: Hezbollah threatens Israel from the north and engages in limited rocket and missile attacks. Israel responds vigorously. Hezbollah then launches a slightly more deadly attack, and Israel responds. Rinse, repeat.

The problem is this isn’t a game. People are dying and tens of thousands of Israelis have been forced to flee their homes in the north with no end in sight – an unsustainable situation. Nonetheless, Hezbollah doesn’t want the war. If they did, they’d start it. But they can’t be left out of the terrorists’ collective war with Israel, and they want to help Hamas kill Jews.

Hezbollah’s actions help Hamas both militarily and at the negotiating table. Militarily, Israel has been forced to devote significant resources to its northern border to respond and defend against Hezbollah rocket fire as well as be prepared to counter any potential Hezbollah invasion.

Anytime a small nation’s military capabilities are spread out, this weakens its negotiating position. Ultimately, one’s ability to bargain successfully with the enemy rests on one’s military might. Part of that equation is support from allies in time of military conflict, and that, our dear readers, is on all of us and our elected leaders to get the job done.

Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis are employing a shrewd (and most assuredly Iranian) strategy, aimed at preserving Hamas’s existence as a functioning terrorist organization.

Fiddling Handmaidens

The regional crisis we are witnessing has been enabled and compounded by years of inconsistent and, at times, absurd foreign policies from successive American administrations.

We’ve had presidents who stood up to Iran, and those who’ve attempted the Chamberlain path.  We’ve even seen significant policy shifts within administrations. But through it all, we at least had a functioning Congress. No, things were far from perfect. Politics and trampling on the Constitution is what enabled President Obama, for example, to avoid submitting the Iran nuclear deal for Senate ratification as the Founders envisioned – but we digress.

The current Congressional dysfunction, partisanship, and acrimony are unprecedented in modern American history. The consequence is that Israel does not have the support she needs at her darkest moment in a half-century. Congressional inaction on the emergency supplemental is having a direct, negative, and tangible impact on the soldiers in the field.

Today’s reality, therefore, is stark: Tehran is plotting, Israelis are dying, and all the while, Congress is fiddling.

Sincerely,

The CUFI Action Fund Team