Jared Kushner’s recent meeting with Hamas is a mistake. The Trump administration risks granting legitimacy to a terrorist group responsible for the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. It could upend the prospects for a peaceful future for Gazans and Israelis alike.
On Aug. 16, Kushner, who is President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and frequent envoy, met Hamas leaders in Cairo to attempt to revive stalled negotiations. The U.S. and others want to implement the Gaza Peace Plan, which, among other things, calls for Hamas to disarm.
Recommended Stories
“If they don’t follow through now on their commitment, everyone will see that they’re not genuine about peace, and then Israel will have a lot more support from the U.S. and others to go and finish the job in the appropriate way,” Kushner said.
Yet Hamas has never been honest about peace, and never will be. One needs only to look at the group’s own words to understand that.
Hamas’s charter calls for genocide of the Jews and the destruction of Israel. Hamas believes all of Israel is “Palestine” and an Islamic holy land “consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day.”
Hamas has made clear that this consecration will come only through bloodletting and terror. “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad,” its charter proclaims.
The Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, in which Hamas and other Iranian-backed militants invaded Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and took 251 hostages, should leave no doubt about the terrorist organization’s intentions.
Hamas rejects the very idea of negotiations. Article 13 of its charter states that “Initiatives and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.”
Hamas was formally created in 1987, but the group’s charter identifies it as the “Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine,” which had a presence in the area for 90 years. Decades before Oct 7, Hamas was perpetrating terrorist attacks, blowing up buses and cafes and murdering civilians, including women and children.
It is as irredeemable as it is irredentist. The group cites Adolf Hitler as a model and has called Osama bin Laden an “Arab holy warrior.” Hamas is a death cult and a cancer. You don’t negotiate with cancer — you fight it.
But delusions persist. The gap between Hamas as it actually is and the Hamas that the Western world thinks it can work with is miles wide.
The United States and the West wouldn’t dream of holding meetings with al Qaeda or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. But they treat Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups differently. That’s a grave and revealing mistake.
Hamas hopes to drag out negotiations so it can rebuild. Israel’s military campaign has severely degraded the terrorists’ capabilities and reach. Israel killed much of Hamas’s leadership, including some living abroad. Hamas has lost ground, literally and figuratively.
It needs time, and the Trump administration’s decision to treat it as a peace partner plays directly into the organization’s hands. Worse still, it runs counter to the White House’s own strategy for securing a better future for Gazans and Israelis.
The first line of the 20-point Gaza Peace Plan, released in September 2025, states that “Gaza will be a deradicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.”
Trump’s decision to hold negotiations with Hamas undercuts its own objectives and signals that the United States lacks resolve and seriousness. It guarantees more war.
The Israelis have made clear that they will never allow Hamas to rule Gaza. The Palestinian people are watching as well.
Fatah, which rules the Palestinian Authority and is viewed as more moderate than Hamas, is weak and unpopular. Hamas seeks to supplant its rival and regain lost ground in Gaza.
By meeting with Hamas, the U.S. has inadvertently signaled that the terrorists will have a say in the future of the Palestinian people. That would be a disaster. Trump must not grant legitimacy to terrorists.
