In this week’s edition of the Action Update, we look at the latest proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, see where things stand with Lebanese efforts to disarm Hezbollah, and then delve into the Iranian regime’s efforts to rebuild its once fearsome presence, and how the world can undermine those efforts with a tight squeeze on Tehran’s cashflow.

The Threat of Attack

As of this week, Hamas has largely abandoned the previous maximalist positions it held that resulted in ceasefire talks proving fruitless. The terrorist group has now proposed a ceasefire agreement in which 10 living hostages and an undisclosed number of deceased hostages would be released. In return, Israel would release hundreds of convicted Palestinian terrorists, including many with life sentences, and withdraw from most of Gaza.

For starters, this may very well be a nonstarter. Jerusalem has essentially said it is fed up with the fits and starts of negotiations as well as partial deals. Israel wants all her hostages back, Hamas to disarm, and to ensure that terrorists (or their allies) are not in charge of Gaza when the war ends.

Conversely, so significant is the emphasis on human life in Judaism, Israel may accept the deal if for no other reason than to save 10 more innocent people from Hamas’s underground hell.

Part of the challenge is that Hamas wants convicted terrorists with life sentences released because most of their leaders are either dead or in jail – so they want to get some of their leaders out so they can mobilize.

In sum, Hamas is still using hostages and the associated negotiations to try to rebuild and, yet again, try to destroy the Jewish state. They need leaders and they need operational space. That’s why they’re so fearful of Israel invading Gaza City, as it presently plans to do. If the IDF conquers Gaza City, what’s left of Hamas will be even smaller and less able to reconstitute a strategically relevant fighting force. They’d have no operational space, and we’ve already discussed the fate of most of their leaders.

We don’t know what the future holds, but President Trump’s position is characteristically unequivocal. In the President’s view, for the hostages to be returned home, Hamas must be “confronted and destroyed.”

The Threat of Stability

Unfortunately, as we’ve seen in the past, not everyone in the Trump administration seems to share the President’s understanding that peace is achieved through strength. Case-in-point: recently Tom Barrack, the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Lebanon, argued that for Hezbollah to disarm in Lebanon, Israel should withdraw from the few places near the border in which the IDF has maintained a position in the former terrorist stronghold.

“I think the Lebanese government has done their part. They’ve taken the first step… Now what we need is for Israel to comply with that equal handshake.”

Except they haven’t “done their part.” Saying they’re going to do their part is not the same as actually doing it. Israel will leave when Beirut doesn’t just talk about exercising sovereignty over their entire country, but when they actually do it.

Amb. Barrack is way out over his skis on this one. Israel’s exceptionally successful operations against Hezbollah enabled the Lebanese people to have a chance at freedom from the terrorists in their midst. Likewise, Israel’s actions led directly to the downfall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Simply put: the businessman-turned-diplomat has been in the Middle East long enough to have learned that kowtowing to Arab leaders who have spent a lifetime enabling terrorists will only bring more violence to the region.

Peace through strength, Mr. Ambassador; we suggest you familiarize yourself with the concept.

The Threat of Sanctions

We know that sanctions are the policy equivalent of tofu: They’ll do the trick, but they’ll never pack the punch one might like (apologies for the metaphor to both our vegetarian readers). Nonetheless, sanctions are the central way in which the world will realize the full gains of Israel’s operations against Iran and its henchmen.

Since the destruction of its proxy forces in Gaza and Lebanon, and the 12-Day War that kneecapped Tehran’s nuclear program, the regime has been hard at work trying to reconstitute the evil infrastructure that Israel and the U.S. destroyed.

As such, Tehran has stepped up its support for and engagement with Shiite terrorist groups in Iraq. In many cases, these terrorists have been fighting and killing Americans for years. Likewise, Tehran continues its support of the Houthis, which in turn continue to lob missiles at Israel.

To address the setback to its nuclear program, Iran has ostensibly decided to do the same thing that got it to the precipice of nuclear weapons last time: smile, threaten and lie a lot.

To this end, the regime is allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to come to Iran for meetings, but there will be no inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites. Such meetings are a transparent photo op, and nothing more (incidentally, the IAEA should not participate in such obvious Iranian dog and pony shows).

It’s time to cripple Iran’s ability to fund its maniacal projects. And, as it happens, if Europe finds some semblance of a spine, we may actually bring the regime closer to its downfall.

The French, British, and Germans (known as the EU-3) told the Iranian regime weeks ago that if there is no real progress in their negotiations with Tehran by the end of the month, the EU-3 would invoke the snapback sanctions mechanism at the UN Security Council (to read more about snapback sanctions checkout this previous Action Update).

Just this week, the leaders from the above-mentioned countries, among others, were in Washington meeting with President Trump on the heels of the President’s meeting with Russian Strongman Vladimir Putin.

Those meetings were about the war in Ukraine, but one must think that during their time in Washington, the leaders from Berlin, Paris and London heard from their American colleagues concerning Iran’s goals for malignant resurgence. Likewise, we have been speaking with our colleagues here in Washington, and especially on Capitol Hill, about the paramount importance of destroying Tehran’s Russo-Sino money train.

Sincerely,

The CUFI Action Fund Team