Hamas is trying to replicate Hezbollah’s model

Meir Ben Shabbat: I think Tehran, more than anyone else, is helping President Trump understand who he is dealing with. The month that has passed since the ‘memorandum of understandings’ was signed has helped dispel the optimism its architects tried to create. The Iranians have made clear that they will not back down from their position regarding the Strait of Hormuz. ‘The Strait of Hormuz belongs to Iran for historical and geographical reasons. This waterway will never return to what it was before the war,’ Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to the Supreme Leader, declared. Similar messages have been delivered by numerous Iranian officials.

The insistence on dictating the conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the maneuvering in negotiations, and the growing calls to eliminate Trump leave the American president with no alternative but military and economic pressure. Trump still prefers a bad agreement to a successful war, but he cannot surrender on the one issue that represented his only achievement in the ‘memorandum of understandings.’ He knows that capitulating to Iranian demands would not only embarrass him but would fail to resolve the crisis and would merely increase the appetite of the extremist regime. If this is how matters stand regarding the temporary memorandum, one can only imagine what negotiations over the far more complex nuclear issues will look like.

Published in Arutz 7, July 17, 2026.

*The opinions expressed in Misgav publications are the authors’ alone.