This past weekend, the world – at least those of us who have still retained some measure of humanity – were shocked to see the state of the Israeli hostages released on Saturday by Hamas.
President Trump likened them to Holocaust survivors. And what other comparison could there be? The hostages were gaunt, tortured and broken for no other reason than their being inheritors of God’s Covenant with the Children of Israel.
Where, Exactly, Are We?
Let’s recap: Last week, Prime Minister Netanyahu traveled to Washington and met with numerous American leaders and officials including, President Trump, Defense Secretary Hegseth, National Security Advisor Waltz, Speaker Johnson, Majority Leader Thune, CUFI founder and Chairman Pastor Hagee, Gov. Huckabee, and several other administration and Congressional officials.
During the trip, the future of Gaza was discussed, but where we go from here is quite uncertain. The Overton Window has moved dramatically, and people in power are discussing serious alternatives to Gaza as we once knew it. CUFI will support the decisions of the democratically elected government, as we always have. And we will confront efforts to pressure Jerusalem into making decisions she opposes, as we always have.
Now, however, the issue is not what happens in Gaza in a few weeks, it’s what happens today and tomorrow. Gazan terrorists continue to try to rearm; they continue to parade emaciated and abused hostages in front of cameras, and they continue to hold innocent men, women and children in an underground hellscape. And if all this were not enough, Hamas has made up an excuse to delay the release of additional hostages which was scheduled for Saturday.
Sorry, Not Sorry
Hamas is making a severe miscalculation (again).
A lot of people in Washington, Europe, and whatever Qatari closet the leadership of Gaza is meeting in have still yet to understand the extent to which the world changed on October 7th. Lies and excuses won’t work. Pleas for patience will fall on deaf ears.
President Trump said the hostages need to be released by noon local time on Saturday or there will be “hell” to pay. Does this offend the sensibilities of the foreign policy intelligentsia? Does it startle the European and Arab leaders unaccustomed to deadlines and accountability? Do such pronouncements scare every Gazan terrorist and Palestinian holding an Israeli hostage? We certainly hope so.
The days of Israelis fleeing to bomb shelters and burying their children to appease the idol of political correctness so worshipped by America’s wayward elites are over. To borrow a phrase, let the people go.
Where Do We Go from Here?
So, what are we to do, given that Hamas is a nihilistic organization more interested in seeing Gaza burn than allowing Jewish babies to be reunited with their mothers? We must learn from the mistakes of the past and ensure they are not repeated.
Take the future of Gaza; President Trump’s ideas are as outside the box as they are sure to guarantee there is no repeat of the 10/7 Massacre.
And what about Lebanon? Hezbollah is a shell of its former self and there’s a new government in Beirut, but is the new boss really that different than the old boss? The Lebanese Armed Forces were tasked nearly two decades ago with extracting Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. Yet during that time, Hezbollah grew in strength exponentially, and we repeatedly saw reports of Hezbollah and the LAF cooperating, patrolling alongside one another, and the like.
As they presently stand, neither the United Nations nor the LAF are the answer to stopping the reconstitution of Hezbollah as a military force in Lebanon. Every penny of American aid to the LAF should be tied to specific and direct benchmarks for success, and those benchmarks should be developed and adapted in real time, as part of a combined American-Israeli decision making process.
Given their (imperialist) former control of Lebanon, we’re fine if Paris wants to observe the relevant discussions, but we’ll need their diplomats to sit quietly in the back. Why? Because we’re not repeating the mistakes of decades’ past (see the aforementioned reference to the world having changed on 10/7). Advancing stability in the Levant will be driven by what works, not what sounds good to the ears of those pontificating from ivory towers.
Rinse, Wash, Repeat? Nope.
Speaking of not repeating the mistakes of the past, you’ll excuse us if we’re not jumping for joy that the Palestinian Authority (PA) announced they were ending their pay-to-slay program. The reason we’re not celebrating this announcement is simple: we do not believe PA President Mahmoud Abbas and neither should you.
Palestinian terrorists do not become statesmen; it’s been tried. Mahmoud Abbas is a rabid Jew-hater with untold gallons of blood on his hands; he is not to be trusted. If the PA says it is changing its pay-to-slay program, it is a near certainty that they have developed a plan to make the same payments through different avenues – money laundering, terrorist style. Every American leader who welcomed Abbas’s announcement should be ready to condemn the PA into oblivion if it turns out our suspicions are correct, and this is just more terrorist sleight of hand.
This said, the anti-Israel/pro-terrorist crowd has just had a significant chunk of their finances cutoff, and it’s not because of new sanctions against Iran. Rather the Trump administration has decided to effectively mothball the US Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID has long been a hotbed of entrenched anti-Israel activity, and it seems like each day we learn of a new abomination at that once venerable agency.
In fact, according to the Washington Free Beacon, the depths of USAID’s depravity extend even to funneling “millions of dollars to anti-Israel advocacy groups and entities linked to terrorism.”
“In November 2022, for instance, USAID awarded $100,000 to a Palestinian activist group whose leaders hailed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terror group. Just six days before Hamas's Oct. 7 assault on Israel, USAID handed $900,000 "to a terror charity in Gaza involved with the son of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh,’" the Free Beacon reported.
The world is indeed changing. We’re learning that our government was engaged in the unthinkable, and ideas once dismissed by many as unthinkable, are now, as Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) recently put it, “part of the conversation.”
The perils and challenges of discarding the anachronistic fantasies of the foreign policy elites are many. But by staying informed, engaged and active on issues of importance to Israel and the Jewish people, we can see legislation like the Antisemitism Awareness Act (which is to be introduced this week in the Senate), advance.
By showing up and making our voices are heard, we can ensure the U.S. stands on the right side of God and history - should-to-shoulder with our ally Israel, come what may.
Sincerely,
The CUFI Action Fund
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