In February, US President Donald Trump convened the “Board of Peace” in Washington, DC, bringing together 59 representatives and several heads of state to launch his ambitious initiative to resurrect Gaza from decades of jihadist indoctrination and radicalization.
The stated aim is to transform the territory from an entrenched nidus of terrorism, the launching ground for the atrocities of October 7, into something altogether different.
For those who do not follow the intricacies of Middle East extremism or fully grasp the nature of Hamas – the Gaza branch of the Muslim Brotherhood – the president’s assertion that there is now peace in Gaza, albeit with minor violations, may sound reassuring. Coupled with an American pledge of $10 billion, in addition to another $7b. from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other donor nations, it creates the impression that we are well on our way to a new vision for this blighted territory and its two million inhabitants.
The president did add a cautionary note: If Hamas does not disarm, things will go very badly for it. Yet he has also said, “It looks like Hamas will disarm.” His special envoy Steve Witkoff has similarly claimed, “They’ll give up their AK-47s.” Unfortunately, this is more than optimism; it is wishful thinking.
Recognizing that Hamas is unlikely to lay down its arms entirely, the Qataris and Turks, two governments that want Hamas to survive to fight another day, have lobbied the president to distinguish between “offensive” and “defensive” weapons. This artificial framing of weaponry appeals to Hamas and its supporters.
According to The New York Times, if the “militant [terrorist] group does give up most of its weapons, it would represent a breakthrough in diminishing Hamas’s monopoly on power.” Following the advice of Muslim Brotherhood-aligned nations, the Board of Peace proposal would require Hamas to surrender “all weapons... capable of striking Israel,” while allowing so-called “defensive” weapons to remain.
This is delusional. If Hamas retains light arms and AK-47s, it will continue to dominate Gaza and intimidate anyone who stands in its way. Israel estimates that Hamas possesses 60,000 AK-47 rifles.
Hamas will be more than willing to let the Board of Peace believe and promote the illusion that it has disarmed. It will skillfully manipulate the board’s subsidiary, the Gaza Executive Board, while pro-Hamas Qatari and Turkish actors work behind the scenes to propagate the narrative that Hamas has been defanged and that independent technocrats are now in charge. We should not fall for it.
Virtually no chance Hamas will disarm
Anyone familiar with the ideologically driven, radical Islamist entity that is Hamas understands that there is virtually no chance it will disarm to the point of relinquishing control, let alone surrender maps to the hundreds of kilometers of still-undiscovered tunnels in the “Red Zone” it controls in western Gaza along the Mediterranean coast.
In December 2025, after the ceasefire began, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who lost 30 members of his family during the Gaza war, stated: “Israel is the only body in the world, from a brute-force perspective, that can take on Hamas.” He added that nations participating in the International Stabilization Force, such as Pakistan and Indonesia, would not take part in disarming Hamas, and that the ISF was “dead on arrival.”
To the casual observer, the involvement of multiple nations in the Board of Peace, some contributing troops to the ISF, including Indonesia, Albania, Greece, and Kazakhstan, may suggest that this force will disarm Hamas terrorists and dismantle their underground infrastructure. Yet these nations have already indicated that they will not undertake such missions, nor will they shield the Palestinian population from intimidation and brutality at Hamas’s hands.
The embedded terror structure in Gaza is a malignant growth that has infiltrated nearly every aspect of civilian society. Terror tunnels run beneath the vast majority of civilian structures. Weapons are stored in children’s bedrooms. The core educational curriculum promotes radical Sunni Muslim Brotherhood indoctrination. The ISF risks becoming little more than a buffer between the IDF and Hamas terrorists, potentially serving as an inadvertent shield when the IDF responds to renewed terrorist activity.
Among the experts with whom I speak, there is near unanimity: no force other than the IDF is capable of disarming – or willing to disarm – Hamas. In an off-the-record conversation, one of Israel’s leading national security experts, who speaks regularly with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told me that it would take at least nine months for Israel to complete an operation capable of significantly disarming Hamas and dismantling the Red Zone.
Unfortunately, Israel is unlikely to be granted nine months to finish such a mission – even by a sympathetic Trump administration – once images of death and destruction dominate the front pages of CNN, PBS, and the Times. Hamas will again place its children deliberately in harm’s way, operate from schools, mosques, and hospitals, and manipulate global opinion to pressure Washington into halting Israeli operations.
I commend the president for an initiative that began with something few believed possible: the release of the living hostages and the return of those deceased. But to assume that the current structure of the Board of Peace will effectively eradicate Hamas and begin genuine deradicalization – starting with a jihadist educational system – while Hamas remains the dominant force behind the scenes, armed with “defensive” weapons, is a fantasy.
The administration’s blind spot lies in granting a decisive role to the Muslim Brotherhood’s financial patron, the emir of Qatar, and to its muscular enforcer, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, in shaping Gaza’s future. Both countries support Hamas and seek its continued entrenchment. They will work – subtly but persistently – to undermine the president’s stated goal of deradicalizing Gaza and the distant dream of true peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
The Qataris and Turks understand that American administrations come and go. They will delay, obfuscate, and wait out the president, confident that Western fatigue will eventually set in. In that vacuum, the Gazan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood – Hamas – will rise again from the ashes, and Israel will once more be left to confront the consequences.
One revealing example of Turkey’s motivations is its recent opening of the Abdullah Azzam Mosque in Gaza in February 2026. According to the Israeli think tank INSS, “While al-Qaeda and Hamas have become household names, far less familiar is the man behind the idea of al-Qaeda, Palestinian Sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, who did much to support the establishment of Hamas.” Naming a mosque after such a figure just as the Board of Peace begins its work should clarify Ankara’s ideological orientation.
The administration must deal with Gaza as it is, not as it wishes it to be. At the Board of Peace meeting in Washington, of all the speeches delivered, only President Trump and the Israeli foreign minister explicitly mentioned the disarmament of Hamas.
As chairman of the board, the president must make it unequivocally clear that without the complete disarmament of Hamas, the elimination of its terror-tunnel infrastructure, and the establishment of an educational system modeled on the UAE’s tolerance framework, the outcome will be more of the same.
If the president seeks a historic victory in Gaza and perhaps even a Nobel Prize, he must not be swayed by false hope, flattery, or empty assurances from Doha and Ankara. He must adhere firmly to his stated commitment: Hamas will be disarmed, one way or another.
The writer is the director of the Middle East Political Information Network and the senior security editor of The Jerusalem Report. He regularly briefs members of Congress, their foreign policy advisers, the State Department, and think tanks.