As President Donald Trump crisscrosses the Arab world this week, there is talk of peace in the Middle East, shockingly with the Hamas terrorist group still in the picture.
However, as a former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and the co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement, challenging Islamist extremism, I know there is only one path to victory in the Middle East: The complete and unconditional surrender by Hamas and the Palestinian people.
The strong-man approach that Trump has taken with China on trade is very similar to the ground game he must realize in the Middle East for the defeat of Hamas. In 2016, he dared to imagine a new reality to the endless wars between Israel and Arab nations and their proxies. Few thought there could be a lasting, genuine peace agreement between Israel and its enemy neighbors, but Trump put a lie to that expectation with the establishment of the Abraham Accords in 2019, building peace between Israel and four historical enemies, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan and Bahrain.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas launched the most brutal and savage war of rape, killing and enslavement of Jews since the Holocaust.
Hamas proclaimed, celebrated and videotaped their brutality. Hamas’ genocidal hate for Jews and Israel runs deep. Hamas practices a theo-political interpretation of my faith known as ‘Islamism,’ or political Islam, believing in a theocratic state. It is a cult that hates individual liberties and free enterprise, spawned from the Muslim Brotherhood, born in Egypt in the 1920s and similar to the ideology of Ayatollah Khomeini, who led the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Islamism has deeply infected the practice of Muslims around the world.
Meanwhile, Arab nations and Palestinian terrorist groups have waged war against Israel repeatedly – and lost – in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, on and on and now 2023 through 2025 through the Islamists that are Hamas.
Why does this cycle of war keep happening?
One simple reason: the international community has never compelled the Palestinians to acknowledge defeat. Today, Hamas has become a death cult, repackaged as a victim-cult where its leaders funnel money poured into them to create infernal tunnels of weaponry, terrorists and hate.
Muslims around the world and guilt-filled westerners have failed to understand that the key element to redemption is surrender. Allied forces had to force Germany and Japan into unconditional surrender before the two nations made the painful step toward modernity after World War II.
But, despite defeat after defeat, Palestinians have never had to surrender their death cults and successfully enter the modern world.
To this, some of my Muslim brethren may say, ‘Surrender to the Jews? Never!’
But they would not be surrendering to the Jews. They would be surrendering the inhumanity and abject failure of Islamist ideology and their fantasy that they will destroy Israel.
History has shown that unconditional surrender would allow the silent majority to find renewal in a post-Hamas, post-Islamist, post-tribal Gaza. Endless wars only end when the defeated are not left at the brink of defeat to rearm again. That is tough love.
The Palestinian establishment has brainwashed its citizenry. Nazi Germany did the same thing. When Nazi German forces were forced to accept defeat and surrender, Germans found freedom on the other side.
That is the type of moral fearlessness needed today. The Hamas Charter is a theo-political screed of Jew-hatred that must be torn up. It’s the Palestinian Mein Kampf. Like the billionaire leaders of Hamas, it perverts and destroys any hope for generations to come.
I believe in my faith of Islam, not the Islamist ideology. Over a millennium ago, Islam had produced the Elon Musks of its age. Islamic nations were the leaders in math, science, philosophy and civilization.
In fact, the only nation-state even mentioned by God in the Qur’an is Israel! Its mention is an endorsement that even Islamists can’t ignore.
So, the historic new alliance between Arab countries must not just be about gleaming skyscrapers. It must be about transformation, or it could end up like the ideologically doomed country of Qatar.
Qatar is an externally modern city-state on the gulf, in the desert. Yet, its state-sponsored media, the horrifically popular Al-Jazeera TV, radicalizes all. It’s one vast communicator of hate against the West, Israel and the Jews.
Al Jazeera English and Arabic is the primary cancer cell spreading the Islamist supremacist worldview of Muslim Brotherhood terror groups. It’s not a coincidence the Qataris have the leaders of the Taliban, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Al Qaeda, ISIS and Hamas on speed dial when it comes time for ‘negotiations.’
Qatar’s trillions fund a blanket of Islamist hate across the world.
The internet has changed life and it has changed Islam, revealing a medieval climate of grievance and tribalism. The Arab Awakening of 2011 reminded the Arab people that they are stronger than their rulers, and they can expose the bullies of the ‘Islamist establishment.’
A poll of Muslims in the United Kingdom revealed that 81% of respondents said they were ‘Muslim first’ and ‘British second.’
Another global poll showed that the majority of Arab Muslims support the death penalty for ‘apostates’ of Islam, with up to 80% in Egypt and Jordan and a plurality across the world. That is today’s normative interpretation of Islamic law, or shar’iah. It is the ideology of a death cult. This all must change.
I recently argued at Oxford Union debate that the ‘brand’ of Islam of today is not compatible with democracy, liberty, or freedom. But the Islam of the 21st century could be, if we end the ‘bigotry of low expectations’ and stop handing Muslims participation trophies for just showing up to negotiations, interfaith dinners and business deals. Muslims have excelled before in a pluralistic society, and we can excel again. But, as we argue through the Muslim Reform Movement and the Clarity Coalition, another group I cofounded to challenge Islamists, we must give up our hate and embrace modernity.
That means recognizing the state of Israel. And unconditionally surrendering with an end to all hostilities and war against Israel. The delusion of a Palestine that replaces the state of Israel must die.
History has shown that unconditional surrender would allow the silent majority to find renewal in a post-Hamas, post-Islamist, post-tribal Gaza. Endless wars only end when the defeated are not left at the brink of defeat to rearm again. That is tough love.
Recent anti-Hamas protests in Gaza may signal an opening in Hamas’ hold on Palestinians. Securing their surrender may finally turn their consciousness away from endless wars toward enlightenment and bring Islam into the 21st century.