For the first time in three years, the world isn’t waiting to see what Israel will do—it’s watching Hamas’ response to the new peace plan that President Trump unveiled this week. This marks a significant shift, as it not only targets the terrorist organization but also redirects international pressure from Israel onto Hamas.
Not only does the majority of the Arab world support the future-defining plan for a Gaza without Hamas, but the group’s main backer so far, Qatar, has shifted its stance. It is no longer trying to preserve Hamas’ rule over the Strip and is instead joining the chorus calling for the organization to accept the conditions set by Trump.
In fact, the only ones who have continued to support the terrorist group—driven by anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Semitism—are the Europeans.
Last Monday’s phone call between the Israeli prime minister and the emir of Qatar, intended to apologize for Israel’s attack on the Hamas leadership in Doha, has turned out to be little more than another smokescreen. It diverts attention from the significant shift of this small but wealthy country, which until now had been the financial, logistical, and ideological supporter of Hamas radicalism.
Even the survival of Hamas’ political leadership in its “golden exile” in Doha could be coming to an end. Some attribute this to pressure from the White House, but it’s also possible that the radical and positive shift is a result of the Israeli airstrikes on Doha on September 9. The message—that there are no sanctuaries safe for terrorists—carries strategic significance far beyond the operational outcome of the mission.
In fact, the only ones who have continued to support the terrorist group—driven by anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Semitism—are the Europeans. This includes the most radical government of all, that of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose administration chose the anniversary of the October 7 attack to punish Spanish companies with ties to Judea and Samaria. It also includes those European countries that, out of domestic weakness, have allowed themselves to be influenced by the millions of Muslim immigrants on their soil to recognize a symbolic Palestinian state in order to pressure Jerusalem diplomatically. These are not the actors who have brought an end to this war closer or established a path toward stability in the region. And Hamas knows it.
Hamas’ calculations
But will this isolation of Hamas be enough to force them to surrender? Will they comply, or will they continue their attacks, even at the risk of total defeat in Gaza?
It is not an organization governed by Western logic but a jihadist movement and ideology whose stated aim is to eliminate the existence of Israel and remove Jews and other nonbelievers from the region. Hamas is a terrorist organization that has ruled the Gaza Strip by crushing all dissent and has shown it will sacrifice its own population when it believes doing so advances efforts to delegitimize Israel internationally.
They see themselves as martyrs, willing to do anything.
Hamas might reject Trump because they believe prolonging the war could put Israel in an even more complicated diplomatic position. But from the outside, that appears more like an illusion, as long as Donald Trump remains in the White House and Europe continues to play an increasingly marginal role on the world stage.
The indoctrination they have carefully cultivated over the years provides fertile ground for the organization to reconstitute itself in the future.
With the Arab support for Trump’s plan, a potential Hamas reckoning would likely only become imaginable if thousands of new civilian casualties were to occur in the Gaza Strip—something the tactics employed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) do not appear to suggest. However, it would not be the first time that Hamas leaders have made disastrous decisions due to a failure to fully understand the reality around them.
They may even consider immolating themselves in a final stand, but it would be more logical for them to try to preserve what remains of their forces now that Israeli troops are closing in on nearly all of Gaza City and advancing toward the group’s last stronghold, the so‑called Central Camp. After all, the Trump plan offers them the option to lay down their arms, surrender, and go into exile in a host country. It also promises the release of 250 members serving life sentences in Israel and 1,700 detainees arrested after the Oct. 7 attack.
It is true that, under the plan, Hamas would have no future in Gaza, either in the short or long term. But its leaders may view things differently. The indoctrination they have carefully cultivated over the years provides fertile ground for the organization to reconstitute itself in the future. Moreover, losing Gaza now might not be seen as the end, since Hamas has continued to establish a presence and expand in the so‑called West Bank, openly defying the Palestinian Authority (PA) and posing an ongoing security challenge to Israel and its citizens.
In other words, Hamas might agree to Trump’s plan and accept the loss of Gaza if it believed doing so would secure a better future in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank)—the area seen by many as the foundation of the long‑dreamed Palestinian state. After all, the Trump plan is focused on Gaza, and it offers only a vague call for reforms within the Palestinian Authority, without addressing the West Bank’s future in detail.
The real conditions for a Palestinian state
The Palestinian Authority, moreover, is in the midst of a succession crisis, plagued by corruption, and has spent a significant portion of the funds provided by the European Union and other donors on an education system that promotes incitement and hatred against Jews.
Peace in Gaza would not be the end of the road to stability, prosperity, and security in the region, but its first step.
For Trump’s plan to succeed, it cannot be limited to a peace agreement for Gaza alone. It must achieve something no previous effort has: convince Palestinians that they want a state more than they want the destruction of Israel. Until that goal is genuinely met, no reasonable decision-maker in Israel will accept creating a Palestinian state whose ultimate aim is not the prosperity of its people but the elimination of the Jewish state and the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the region.
Trump’s plan has one clear virtue: it puts responsibility for this war squarely on Hamas — as it has been since that fateful October 2023. All they had to do was release the hostages. If they refuse peace, they must accept the consequences.
Peace in Gaza would not be the end of the road to stability, prosperity, and security in the region, but its first step. Hamas and other terrorist groups everywhere—not just in Gaza—must be eliminated, especially in the West Bank, which could become their next battleground. Only once that threat is removed will it be possible to pursue de‑radicalization and institutional reform so that, if a Palestinian state ever comes into being, it will be a normal neighbor rather than a new threat to Israel’s—and the region’s—peace and security.
Published originally on October 2, 2025.
