U.S. President Donald Trump has once again shown his willingness to think boldly about one of the world’s most intractable conflicts. His new 21-point plan for Gaza reflects both his creativity and his determination to back Israel while challenging the international community to take responsibility.
No American president in modern history has been more consistent in his friendship toward Israel. From moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, to recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, to brokering the groundbreaking Abraham Accords, Trump has shown he understands Israel’s security concerns better than most Western leaders. His new Gaza plan is a continuation of that record — an effort to isolate Hamas and give Israel diplomatic cover against its enemies.
But here lies the problem: not Trump, not Netanyahu, and certainly not Israel. The obstacle is Islamism itself.
Much of the West still clings to the fantasy that groups like Hamas can be coaxed into moderation with incentives, recognition, or international oversight. Yet Hamas is not simply another political faction. It is the armed wing of an Islamist ideology that rejects democracy, pluralism, and coexistence. To negotiate with Hamas is to negotiate with an absolutist creed that sees compromise as weakness.
History makes this clear. Yasser Arafat shook hands on the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, while privately describing them as a temporary truce — a hudna — to regroup and prepare for more conflict. Hamas operates under the same strategy. They may tactically accept committees or foreign oversight, but their long-term goal remains the same: Israel’s destruction.
This is not about borders or settlements. It is about ideology. And this ideology is why Palestinian Christians have fled their ancestral homes in Bethlehem, Gaza, and the West Bank. Islamism is supremacist by design, seeking a Middle East purged of Jews and Christians, with ambitions that reach far beyond Israel.
Hamas’s backers prove the point. Qatar pretends to be a mediator while secretly bankrolling extremism. Its money sustains Hamas in Gaza while buying influence in Washington, London, and Brussels. Iran, meanwhile, arms Hamas and Hezbollah in open defiance of international law. To expect either regime to dismantle Hamas is pure delusion.
The Palestinian Authority is no solution either. Led by the aging and corrupt Mahmoud Abbas, the PA lacks credibility and the ability to govern Gaza. Hamas has a proven history of eliminating rivals — either by bribes, intimidation, or outright assassination. Dropping the PA into Gaza would simply pave the way for another Hamas takeover.
This is why Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace” — an international oversight body — will inevitably be manipulated by Hamas and their patrons. Not because Trump is wrong to try, but because too much of the West refuses to recognize the true nature of the enemy. Islamism cannot be appeased, only defeated.
Even the Abraham Accords — Trump’s crowning achievement in Middle East diplomacy — prove the point. Arab states signed on not because they had abandoned hostility toward Israel, but because Trump compelled them to face reality: Israel is the region’s indispensable partner for technology, security, and progress. Trump achieved what his predecessors could not by making clear that America stood firmly with Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands this as well. By endorsing Trump’s 21-point plan, Netanyahu demonstrates Israel’s good faith to the world. When Hamas inevitably rejects the plan, it will be clear who stands in the way of peace. Israel will then have both the moral and diplomatic cover to act decisively in its own defense.
That is the brilliance of Trump’s approach: he exposes the true obstacle — not Israel, not diplomacy, but Hamas and the Islamist ideology it represents.
Western leaders would do well to follow Trump’s example. Instead of indulging illusions about moderating terrorists, they should stand firmly with Israel, confront Islamist regimes like Qatar and Iran, and recognize that appeasement only emboldens extremism.
At Christians and Jews United for Israel (CJUI), we know that true peace will never come by rewarding those who glorify terror. It will come by supporting Israel — the one democracy in the Middle East — and by standing with leaders who have the courage to confront evil honestly. President Trump has once again reminded the world of that truth.