DEAR JARED KUSHNER: WESTERN WAYS WON’T WORK
Jared Kushner is negotiating with Hamas and Iran on matters that could profoundly affect Israel’s and America’s security. If I could send him one message during those talks, this is what I would want him to understand.
WESTERN WAYS WON’T WORK
Western diplomacy begins with certain assumptions. It assumes that both parties desire compromise, peaceful coexistence and a lasting agreement. It assumes that negotiation is a path away from conflict and toward peace.
Hamas does not treat negotiations that way.
For Hamas, negotiations, ceasefires, humanitarian aid and international pressure are instruments within a continuing ideological struggle. Its strategy is not simply peace interrupted by occasional warfare. It is warfare conducted by many means.
Terrorism is one means. Propaganda, political influence, international institutions and temporary agreements can be others.
Western negotiators enter the room searching for common ground. Hamas enters searching for advantage. The West views an agreement as progress toward peace. Hamas may view the same agreement as a more favorable position from which to continue the struggle.
That is why Western ways will not work as long as Western leaders refuse to understand the ideology sitting across the table.
CIVILIZATION JIHAD
The expression “civilization jihad” appeared in a 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum introduced as evidence during the federal Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing trial. Hamas developed as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Civilization jihad” does not necessarily begin with armies crossing borders or terrorists carrying weapons. It describes a long ideological struggle pursued through institutions, propaganda, political influence, intimidation and the exploitation of a free society’s openness.
The uniforms and flags may be absent, but the objective remains domination rather than coexistence.
This does not describe every Muslim. It must never become an accusation against people merely because of their faith. It describes an Islamist political strategy expressed by elements of the Muslim Brotherhood and pursued violently by Hamas.
That distinction helps explain why negotiations with Hamas cannot be treated like negotiations with an ordinary political opponent seeking a permanent compromise.
For Hamas, negotiation is another instrument of war—a way to gain time, preserve its leadership, secure an Israeli withdrawal, obtain the release of prisoners, attract reconstruction money and survive to fight another day.
A temporary agreement with the appearance of concessions can be accepted without abandoning the ultimate objective.
APPEASEMENT IS NOT PEACE
Appeasement will never work with Hamas. Every concession risks being interpreted as weakness, and every agreement can be exploited as an opportunity to regroup, rearm and continue the struggle.
Words and promises are not enough. Any agreement that leaves Hamas armed, organized or in control of terrorist infrastructure is not peace. It is merely an interval before another conflict.
Peace requires two parties willing to accept one another’s permanent existence. Hamas has provided no reliable evidence that it seeks that kind of peace. Its leaders may adjust their language, accept an interval of calm or offer carefully worded assurances. None of that constitutes transformation while Hamas retains its weapons, tunnels, command structure and declared hostility toward Israel.
There can be negotiations over the release of hostages and the terms of Hamas’s surrender. But Israel must never negotiate away its security based upon promises.
There must be no withdrawal that allows Hamas to survive as an armed force and no reconstruction that enables it to rebuild its terrorist infrastructure.
Disarmament must come first—complete, verifiable and irreversible.
THE SAME WARNING APPLIES TO HEZBOLLAH
Hamas and Hezbollah do not arise from precisely the same ideological movement.
Hamas developed from the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. Hezbollah is a Shiite organization created and sustained under the influence of Iran’s revolutionary regime. Despite those differences, both can treat diplomacy, political participation and temporary agreements as instruments within a larger struggle.
Hezbollah has participated in Lebanese politics while maintaining an armed force outside the effective control of the Lebanese state. It has used the language of “resistance” to justify preserving its weapons and building power within Lebanon’s political and civilian institutions.
The West repeatedly mistakes political participation for moderation and temporary restraint for transformation. But an organization does not become peaceful merely because it sits in parliament, enters negotiations or observes a ceasefire.
With both Hamas and Hezbollah, every agreement must be measured by what is verifiably dismantled—not by what is temporarily promised.
If the weapons, command structures and hostile objectives remain, the threat remains.
THE HEAD OF THE SNAKE
At the center of this network stands the Islamic Republic of Iran—the head of the snake.
The Iranian regime has transformed its revolutionary interpretation of Twelver Shiism into a political and military project. Through the doctrine of velayat-e faqih—the guardianship of the Islamic jurist—Iran’s ruling clerics claim religious authority over the state while supporting armed movements that extend Iranian power and advance the regime’s objectives.
The distinction is important. The problem is not every Shia Muslim, nor is every Iranian responsible for the regime’s ideology. Many Iranians have suffered under that regime.
The problem is the present Iranian leadership’s weaponization of religion, its commitment to exporting its revolution and its use of terrorist proxies and partners against Israel, America and other perceived enemies.
Hezbollah is the regime’s closest ideological and military extension. Hamas is different: it is Sunni and descended from the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet Iran has armed, financed and supported Hamas because they share an enemy and a determination to destroy Israel. Their theological differences have not prevented strategic cooperation.
Hamas threatens Israel from Gaza. Hezbollah threatens it from Lebanon. Other Iranian-backed organizations exert pressure elsewhere.
Different names. Different sects. Different battlefields. But behind much of that coordinated pressure stands the Iranian regime.
Western leaders will misunderstand this conflict as long as they treat every proxy as an isolated problem. Cutting one branch is insufficient while the regime nourishing the network remains willing and able to grow another.
THE THREAT DOES NOT STOP AT ISRAEL
Iran’s revolutionary reach does not end at the borders of the Middle East.
Iran and Hezbollah have developed networks extending into Europe, Africa and the Americas. Their activities adapt to their surroundings. In one country, participants may raise money or operate businesses. In another, they may spread propaganda, gather intelligence, cultivate influence or prepare the groundwork for violence.
The outward activity changes according to the environment, but the organizations and loyalties behind it remain.
The FBI has testified that Hezbollah has sent operatives to establish terrorist infrastructure worldwide. British authorities reported that police and MI5 responded to twenty Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats between January 2022 and May 2025. The United States has also identified Hezbollah support and financial networks operating across Europe and Africa.
Sources:
FBI - https://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches-and-testimony/examining-the-current-status-of-iran-s-axis-of-resistance-and-the-implications-for-homeland-security-and-us-interests
British government - https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/update-on-counter-terrorism-policing-operations
U.S. Treasury - https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0388
This does not mean that every Muslim organization, mosque, protester or critic of Israel belongs to an Iranian-controlled network. Nor does it mean that Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood are one organization. They represent different movements and sometimes pursue competing interests.
But Western leaders make a dangerous mistake when they examine every organization in isolation and ignore the larger ideological struggle directed against Israel, Western influence and liberal democratic society.
THEY ARE SERIOUS ABOUT INTIFADA
The word intifada means an uprising or a “shaking off.” Within the history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, it is not an innocent synonym for political disagreement. The Palestinian intifadas included sustained campaigns of violence.
When activists demand that the intifada be “globalized,” their language cannot simply be dismissed as theatrical rhetoric. The slogan carries a history. Responsible leaders must take that history seriously.
The threat does not come from ordinary Muslims living peacefully under democratic law. It comes from organized Islamist movements that exploit Western freedoms while rejecting the principles that make those freedoms possible.
Their methods vary, but their seriousness must never be underestimated.
They tell us that their struggle is global.
The West’s continuing mistake is refusing to believe them.
THE TERRIBLE IRONY
Here is the terrible irony: we must believe them—and we must not believe them.
Believe Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s rulers when they speak openly to their own followers about their objectives. Believe them when they glorify “resistance,” threaten Israel’s destruction and describe their struggle as continuing from one generation to the next.
Those statements are not meaningless rhetoric. They explain the sacrifices these movements demand from their followers and reveal the future they are pursuing.
But do not believe the softened language delivered across a negotiating table.
Western diplomats repeatedly reverse this rule. They dismiss threatening declarations as rhetoric intended for a domestic audience, yet treat diplomatic assurances as evidence of moderation. They regard the words spoken to followers as performance and the words spoken to Western officials as truth. Why should we assume that?!
An organization’s consistent declarations, governing conduct and long-term investment in weapons reveal more about its purpose than promises made when it is under pressure. A promise offered during negotiations may represent a tactical concession rather than an ideological transformation.
So, Jared Kushner, believe them when they tell their followers what they ultimately intend to accomplish.
But when they tell Western negotiators exactly what the West wants to hear, demand proof.
Believe their objectives, but verify their promises.
And never exchange Israel’s security for words that leave the weapons, infrastructure and ideology intact.
That turn can work, but it should advocate strategic leverage—not secretly negotiating under false pretenses before launching an attack. The objective should be the end of Hamas as an armed and governing organization through surrender, disarmament, removal from power, and verifiable dismantlement.
WATCH ME PIVOT!!
TURN THEIR STRATEGY AGAINST THEM
Recognizing Hamas’s negotiating mentality does not require America to abandon negotiation. It requires America to stop negotiating like a sucker.
Hamas believes it understands the West. Its leaders assume that American negotiators sincerely desire a peaceful resolution, fear the collapse of talks and will eventually offer concessions to preserve the appearance of progress. Hamas tries to turn America’s good faith into American weakness.
That assumption can be turned against Hamas.
The United States can use negotiations strategically—not to preserve Hamas, but to bring about the end of Hamas as an armed and governing organization. Every proposal should move toward that objective: the release of every hostage, the surrender of every weapon, the dismantling of every tunnel, the removal of Hamas from power and the establishment of a Gaza that can never again threaten Israel.
Negotiation should leave Hamas with an increasingly clear choice: surrender its weapons and relinquish power, or face growing isolation and consequences. There should be no advance rewards for promises, no Israeli withdrawal based upon intentions and no reconstruction money released before verified compliance.
Hamas expects negotiations to weaken the West’s resolve. Instead, negotiations should expose Hamas’s deception, divide its leaders from those who merely want to survive, deny it international legitimacy and build support for its complete disarmament.
We do not need to imitate Hamas’s dishonesty. We need to understand its assumptions and refuse to be controlled by them.
Let Hamas believe that talking will buy it time. Then let it discover that every day of negotiation has narrowed its choices, strengthened the coalition against it and brought it closer to surrender.
Hamas has long attempted to use negotiations as a weapon against Israel and America.
It is time to turn that weapon around.
DOES PRESIDENT TRUMP ALREADY UNDERSTAND?
I would like to believe that President Trump already understands this—and that what appears to be conventional negotiation may actually be something far more strategic.
Perhaps he understands that Hamas and Iran enter negotiations believing they are playing America for a sucker. Perhaps he is allowing them to believe that while his administration steadily narrows their choices and advances an objective he could never announce publicly.
No president could openly reveal such a strategy without destroying its value. So I cannot claim to know what President Trump or Jared Kushner is privately attempting to accomplish.
But I hope the purpose is not to rescue Hamas through another temporary agreement. I hope negotiation is being used to secure the hostages, isolate Hamas and bring about its complete disarmament and removal from power.
If that is the strategy, Hamas may eventually discover that it was not playing America after all.
America was playing Hamas.
TRUMP’S ULTIMATE 3D CHESS GAME?
Is America Turning Hamas’s Negotiating Strategy Against It?
If that is what President Trump and Jared Kushner are doing—allowing Hamas and Iran to believe they are manipulating America while America steadily turns negotiation against them—then that would truly be three-dimensional chess.
The final move would not be another temporary peace agreement. It would be checkmate.
