A Day-After Plan for Real Peace

This is the day-after plan we need; not a pause, but a pivot. Toward a Middle East where Jews and Arabs build together in the sun of reason, not the shadow of hate.

Guest contribution: This piece was co-authored with my friend and fellow passionate Zionist, Jonathan Morton. Jonathan and I share a deep and passionate love of Israel. While we don’t always agree because we come from very different perspectives and politics. Our conversations embody the kind of Jewish unity I wish were more common. Honest disagreement rooted in shared purpose. He challenges me to see how strength can coexist with humility, and how faith and reason together can anchor a people under siege. I appreciate his friendship and his contribution to broadening (and softening) my perspective on Israel. Am Yisrael Chi.

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The ceasefire in Gaza is a fragile pause, not a victory. President Trump’s bold strategic maneuvers allowed all parties to reach an agreement that provided for the release of the hostage in exchange for an end to the war and a partial evacuation of Gaza by the IDF. The critical issue has become whether there has actually been an agreement reached between the parties that cuts through the illusions that have trapped us for decades. The agreement (as interpreted by the Israelis and the moderate Arab states) is clear: Hamas must be crushed, its leaders hunted without mercy, and its grip on power shattered forever. No more half measures, no more truces that let terror regroup. Trump’s plan (as interpreted by the Israelis and the moderate Arab states) demands total defeat. It insists on operational freedom for Israel inside Gaza until the threat is eradicated. And it aligns with a deeper truth that we have seen repeatedly since the end of World War II: ceasefires do not end wars. Only decisive victory followed by disarmament can secure peace and prevent another generation from being sacrificed to false hope.

Defeat must be paired with an immediate security and a civil administration solution. A temporary coalition of moderate Arab states, the US and Israeli oversight must stabilize Gaza’s day-to-day life until a new, non-Hamas Palestinian authority can be vetted and installed that can provide stability and a modicum of freedom to its people.

Defeat The Ideological Core

The first test of unity is the disarmament of Hamas. If the Palestinians and their allies cannot meet this first step then next steps will never occur and Palestinian suffering will continue indefinitely. As Haviv Rettig Gur so eloquently explains, Hamas is not merely a militant faction or a political rival. It is the inheritor of a revivalist theology that reads geopolitical success as divine validation. That theology, traced from late 19th and early 20th century thinkers through the Muslim Brotherhood to Hamas, treats the defeat or survival of Israel as the primary signal that Islam is returning to strength. Iran’s theocratic project and Sunni Islamist movements converge on this one demand: overcoming Israel is the first sign of redemption. Under that logic, survival, martyrdom, and the ability to continue the struggle are interpreted as proof of divine favor, which in turn legitimizes renewed violence rather than restraint. As Haviv states:

If you drill down to the Ayatollahs of Iran, catch one and interrogate him politely over coffee, or impolitely, I don’t care, he wants me dead, and ask, “Why Israel?” you find the same logic. Iran, with its Shia reinterpretation of Sunni revivalist ideas, believes it is the revolutionary vanguard of Islam’s restoration. But why Israel? Iran is 1,200 miles away. It has no border, no competing ports, no economic reason to care about Israel. Yet it spends a double-digit percentage of its GDP building a proxy system around Israel to destroy it. Why?

Because they believe that Islam’s redemption begins with overcoming Israel. It’s the same idea Rida articulated a century ago that Islam’s weakness will only end when it reverses the humiliation inflicted by the historically weak Jews. This is the one point of unity between Sunnis like Hamas and Shias like the Ayatollahs: the belief that defeating Israel is the first sign of divine grace returning to Islam.

Because Hamas frames the conflict as zero sum, its strategy is to perpetuate war rather than negotiate peace. Peace that leaves Israel intact is treated as defeat. Periods of calm are viewed as pauses, not solutions. That is why rebuilding Gaza without changing who controls it or how it is governed risks simply restocking the tunnel and arsenal economy and buying time for the next assault. Likewise, holding or trading hostages is not merely tactical cruelty. Within this worldview it is a source of political and theological leverage that sustains the movement.

Haviv continues:

….in the pro-Palestinian movement, Israel is constantly called colonialist, imperialist, apartheid, even Nazi. These words, he argues, don’t serve as analytic descriptions but as assertions that Israel is peelable that, like Nazism peeled off Germany or apartheid peeled off South Africa, Israel can be stripped away from the land, leaving an authentic Palestine beneath. That notion that the Jews are removable feeds Hamas’ zero-sum ideology. It tells Palestinians that compromise is immoral, that total victory is not only possible but divinely required.

Hamas, of course, knows this strategy has failed for a century. They know they can’t destroy Israel. Yet they persist because their theology demands sacrifice, not success. Gaza’s destruction is, in their eyes, a worthy offering on the altar of Islam’s redemption. In that belief system, there is nothing the world can do for Gaza that Hamas won’t undo. Every dollar, every shipment of aid, every campaign against Israel will be twisted back into the narrative that Islam is purified through struggle and that redemption comes only through Jewish destruction.

For a credible “day after” plan, the international community, including Israel, must enforce the intent of the Trump peace plan, and no longer treat Hamas as a negotiable status quo. Reconstruction and humanitarian relief must be conditioned on dismantling Hamas’ governance, its capacity to rearm, and the theological narratives that justify endless conflict. Only a clear, enforceable defeat of the movement’s ability to rule, rearm, and terrorize can invert the perverse signal that survival equals divine endorsement. Only then will clerical and political narratives that sanctify perpetual war be forced to reckon with a demonstrated failure. As Gur explains:

And the inverse is also true: only total defeat, an unmistakable end to Hamas’ ability to fight, rule, or inspire, could force a reinterpretation among their clerics. If victory proves God’s favor, then defeat disproves it. Only when Hamas is destroyed will the imams who teach this theology be compelled to reconsider whether Allah truly endorses perpetual war.

That, Haviv concludes, is the moral and strategic heart of the Gaza conflict. The world can love Israel or hate Israel, but none of that matters so long as Hamas endures. For Palestinians to have a future, Hamas, and the theology that sanctifies endless war, must be defeated. Hamas’ militarism has demonstrably postponed Palestinian independence for more than twenty years and brought immense suffering. We should expect a full-throated good riddance to them.

The Crucial Test of Self-Governance

The defeat of Hamas solves the security problem but instantly creates a political one: the vacuum which has led further radicalization is places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. The immediate governance of Gaza cannot be left to hope or political posturing. The temporary coalition of moderate Arab states, the United States, and Israeli oversight must function as the interim stabilizing force, and must not allow the Palestinians to avoid the hard decisions required for self-government. This force must enforce the peace, oversee the cleansing of the terror infrastructure, and manage basic services until a vetted, non-Hamas Palestinian civil administration can be established. This is a non-negotiable phase of security administration, and the world must now allow the Palestinians to drop the ball through in-fighting, corruption, cowardice and finger pointing.

The test of good government must be one of basic political maturity. Many observers, eager for a Palestinian state, suggest the ball is now entirely in the Palestinians court to form a viable democracy. We should watch closely to see if Palestinians genuinely embrace the ideals that underpin any successful modern nation. Will they convene a constitutional convention focused on protecting individual rights and private property, crucial for rebuilding their economy? Will they establish an independent judiciary capable of checking government overreach, ensuring the first election is not the last, which is the fate of all regimes without proper checks and balances?

Given the distinct cultures and governments in Gaza and the West Bank, federalism seems like the rational design to prevent a single monolithic power center from hijacking the future.

The entire world, including every Western leader who demands a state, needs to recognize that the success of an independent Palestine depends entirely on the adoption of these liberal democratic principles which, to date, have been utterly rejected by Palestinian leadership in favor of corruption and authoritarianism.

But even after Hamas’ defeat, the deeper struggle begins, which is not measured in months but in generations: the battle for the next generation’s mind.

No Reconstruction Without Reeducation

After helping the Afghans defeat the Soviets, America congratulated itself and went home. It was “Charlie Wilson’s War” but without Charlie Wilson’s peace. Billions were spent arming the mujahideen, yet when the last Russian tank crossed the border, no one stayed to build schools, retrain teachers, or plant a vision of what freedom should look like. The vacuum was filled by clerics and warlords who taught that victory came from Allah alone, not from human courage or the desire for liberty. The lesson was clear: when you topple tyranny but fail to reeducate, fanaticism rushes in to claim the victory.

A generation in Gaza has been marinated in jihadist poison. Children drilled in summer camps to wield rifles, not for sport, but to hunt Jews. Textbooks that teach martyrdom as the highest calling, where maps erase Israel and history glorifies suicide bombers. This is not education. It is indoctrination, a deliberate warping of young minds to perpetuate endless war. The findings of these curriculum monitors are often debated by UN apologists, but their consistent evidence demands we treat this material as a weapon of war.

In its schools serving 500,000 students in Gaza and the West Bank, curricula promote jihadism, antisemitism, and elements echoing blood libels.¹ A 2023 IMPACT-se report analyzed UNRWA-distributed textbooks glorifying violence, such as a Grade 5 Arabic unit praising Dalal al-Mughrabi’s 1978 massacre as “heroism,” or Islamic Education texts defining jihad as a duty to “free Palestine from Zionist occupiers.” Antisemitic content includes depictions of Jews as treacherous in historical battles, fostering conspiracy myths.². In 2025, independent monitors alleged extensive Hamas and PIJ penetration within UNRWA staff, including principals and administrators, revealing an alleged 1,462 UNRWA staff affiliated with Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad,³ some inciting terrorism online. This indoctrination morally betrays the UN’s peace mandate, and sowing hatred that sustains conflict, thereby ensuring the ideology of maximalist rejectionism survives every political peace attempt.

Deradicalization must follow defeat. It starts with purging the poison: dismantle the networks of mosques and schools that double as terror incubators. Replace them with curricula that affirm life over death, dignity through work over glory in graves. International partners, those truly committed to peace, must fund and oversee this. Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with their own deradicalization models, could lead. Saudi Arabia’s program for former jihadists, which pairs counseling with employment and family reintegration, has shown measurable success in reducing recidivism.⁴

Imagine joint programs where moderate imams teach that the Quran’s verses on peace are not footnotes, but commands. The international community must tie aid to milestones: no reconstruction dollars until textbooks pass review, until youth programs prioritize coding over combat training. Radicals may cry cultural imperialism, but the West must reject this cry because teaching children the value of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not cultural imperialism,it is liberation. Freeing a people from the chains of fanaticism they did not choose and giving them hope for a brighter future.

But deradicalization must be smart as well as strict. History warns that cultural overhaul imposed too quickly can provoke backlash and strengthen the very extremists we aim to defeat. The Western push for top-down modernization in 1950s Iran produced symbols of progress that looked modern through Western eyes but felt alien to many Iranians. Jazz clubs and miniskirts were not reforms in hearts and minds. They were cultural whiplash. The backlash helped empower religious hardliners who promised to restore authenticity and then imposed a theocratic order for decades. That failure is a warning, not an excuse.

Our task in Gaza is to widen the Overton Window from within, not to yank it by force. Work with local credible voices. Build programs that ordinary families can accept and then expand those gains. Start with modest, verifiable steps that reframe dignity and opportunity: vocational training that leads to real jobs, family counseling that reduces radical recruitment, mosque partners who emphasize mercy and civic duty. Use milestones to reward progress and deny funds when projects backslide. In short, do not confuse imitation for reform. Real change is cumulative, not theatrical. It must feel indigenous or it will be rejected. This is where Israel’s moderate partners need to lead or this effort will fail.

Deradicalization done this way will be durable. It will replace martyrdom with craftsmanship and martyrdom myths with marketable skills. It will make the next generation less susceptible to the zero-sum theology that schools and camps now teach. Only then will reconstruction become more than a temporary fix. Only then will rebuilding Gaza have a chance of producing a society that chooses life over death.

Hold The Enablers Accountable or Rebuild Nothing

We must also finally, unanimously, call out and confront states that enable Hamas. Qatar’s double game of hosting U.S. facilities while providing support to radicals, including Hamas – such as sheltering Hamas leaders, can no longer be tolerated. Al Jazeera must be reformed to report responsibly and not to provoke terror and war. Turkey’s permissive posture toward operatives must be met with diplomatic and economic pressure. Treat host-state enablers like criminal facilitators: close offices, freeze assets, expel operatives, and withdraw diplomatic cover until compliance is verified. Entry into the civilized world and all the riches/economic opportunities that it brings must be conditioned on the rejection of radical terrorists who threaten this economic order.

Not one dollar, not one slab of debris cleared until verifiable disarmament is verifiably complete. This means the destruction of terror tunnels and the endof arms smuggling around and underneath checkpoints. Only then can checkpoints be dismantled and the freedom of movement be restored.

Reconstruction funds from Arab petrostates must be conditional on third-party inspections that prevent dual-use diversion. Use reconstruction as leverage to ensure Gaza becomes a place of work and schools, not workshops for rockets. Create a multinational information body to systematically expose Hamas lies and provide verifiable reporting in Arabic, English, and other key languages.

This is not propaganda. This is fact-based pushback against the professional disinformation machine that sustains Hamas’ legitimacy. Qatar needs to be held accountable for Al Jazeera’s propaganda machinery.

The Western world, led by the US and Israel and working with their Arab allies need to establish a global intelligence taskforce to ensure we have a way to verify progress. Mossad, the CIA, MI6, and willing regional partners like the UAE and Jordan, must map finances,⁵ intercept arms flows, trace Iranian supply routes, and identify front organizations in the West.

This is not fictional fantasy. It is the logistical backbone of disarmament. Without coordinated intelligence, boots on the ground will merely rearrange the enemy’s networks.

The enablers are not only states. They include global institutions that have made anti-Israel bias a business model.

The UN’s Hypocrisy Has No Place in a Day-After Plan

The United Nations has proven itself to be impotent in bringing peace and order, and it currently stands as a monument to hypocrisy in all this. Consider the absurdity baked into its vision of a Palestinian state. It demands ethnic cleansing, but only of Jews. A sovereign Palestine in the West Bank is acceptable, they say, but every Jewish community must be uprooted, every home demolished, every family expelled. Jews living peaceably alongside Arabs in the hills of Judea and Samaria are branded illegal settlers. This is not justice. It is bigotry.

UN resolutions condemn Jewish presence there as a barrier to peace while ignoring the civil rights at stake. Resolution 2334 (2016) labels Jewish neighborhoods beyond the 1949 armistice lines “a flagrant violation under international law.” Yet, as discussed in Blood Libel #2, that conclusion is not settled law. Jews have the right to live anywhere in their ancestral homeland, to buy land, to build homes, just as any people would in their own country. Denying this is denying basic human dignity. It is immoral to carve the world into Jew-free zones, as if Jewish lives are conditional on someone else’s approval. Meanwhile, as we discussed in “Israel 173, Rest of the World 71: What the UNGA Record Shows” bodies like the Human Rights Council maintain Agenda Item 7, a permanent mechanism for singling out Israel.

It’s clear that the UN and organizations like UNRWA⁶ must be excluded from any reconstruction or educational oversight in Gaza.⁷ Years of evidence show the agency’s systems have been exploited. Crucially, the removal of UNRWA clears the path for a transparent, temporary governance structure that can prioritize stability over political posturing. Third-party inspectors, funded and staffed by credible Arab and Western partners, must verify every textbook, every hire, and every project before a single dollar is released.

Peace Through Incentives, Not Illusions

True peace demands incentives that reward moderation, not madness. Picture a Gaza rebuilt not as a fortress, but as a hub of prosperity. Reconstruction funds flow only after verifiable disarmament, inspected by neutral parties. Arab petrostates foot the bill, but with strings: projects must create jobs, not tunnels. Offer pathways to citizenship for those who renounce violence, full economic integration for communities that police their own radicals. Promote moderate Islam through scholarships for students studying in tolerant societies, media campaigns highlighting successful Arab-Israelis thriving under the rule of law.

Israel has never turned away an enemy seeking peace. Look at Egypt after Sadat made his overture for peace. Same with, Jordan after 1994. Treaties signed, borders secured, lives saved. Egypt’s army, once poised to invade, now cooperates on intelligence. Jordan’s king trades barbs but trades goods too. Israel’s history is a ledger of proven restraint: it withdrew from Sinai, uprooted Gaza settlements, offered land for peace at every turn. The opposite cannot be said of Hamas and the Palestinians. Hamas executes collaborators. The PA launches violent intifadas and pays terrorists to kill Jews. If the world craves peace, it must face facts. These jihadists do not play by Western rules. They weaponize ceasefires, exploit aid, glorify death.

Incentives work only when backed by resolve. Moderate voices in the Muslim world, those preaching coexistence, need amplification. Fund their mosques, their schools, their platforms. Show that peace pays, in dollars and divine favor. Peace through strength is not a slogan. It is a law of history.

The Moral Ledger

Israel’s sole desire has always been to live in peace. From the U.N. partition vote in 1947, when Jews accepted a non-contiguous state while Arabs rejected a contiguous state that provided them with much of the fertile land, yet still attacked, to the olive branches extended after every war. We built a nation not for conquest, but for refuge. Our history screams it: Holocaust survivors forging plowshares from swords, refugees turning deserts green. The jihadists’ history? A century of misery, death, and wars. If the world is serious about peace, it must choose sides not in words, but in actions.

Trump’s plan is the blueprint: total defeat of Hamas, rehabilitation of Gaza, incentives for moderation, and a path towards peaceful coexistence. This is the day-after plan we need. Not a pause, but a pivot.

It imagines a Middle East where Jews and Arabs build together in the sun of reason, not the shadow of hate.

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Footnotes:

1. The specific claims regarding curricula are based on extensive, independently verified research. The following resources detail the content, UNRWA’s role, and the consequences of this education:

• Primary Research Source: IMPACT-se (Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education) is the leading NGO in this field.

  • Report (PDF): UNRWA Education: Textbooks and Terror, Nov 2023. This report documents the glorification of Dalal al-Mughrabi and the promotion of violent jihad in materials used by UNRWA.

  • Report (PDF): Review of UNRWA Schools Headed by Hamas Principals. This details the infiltration of terror groups into UNRWA school administration, reinforcing the systematic nature of the incitement.

• Parliamentary and Governmental Records:

  • UK Parliament: Written evidence submitted by IMPACT (MENA0029) - UK Parliament Committees. Provides a comprehensive overview of the PA curriculum’s consistent failure to meet UNESCO standards since 2016.

  • U.S. Congress: Hearing on UNRWA Anti-Semitism Poisons Palestinian Youth. Transcripts from a November 2023 Congressional hearing on the systemic nature of UNRWA-facilitated incitement.

• Video Documentation:

  • The Palestinian Incitement Exposed (March 2016). A video compilation shown by Prime Minister Netanyahu exposing PA officials’ rhetoric and the culture of incitement.

  • Was a 13-year-old Palestinian incited to terrorism by UN schoolbooks? (January 2023). Discussion on the real-world connection between the curriculum’s promotion of martyrdom and a terror attack committed by a minor.

2. The figures and specific examples of glorification of violence are drawn from research by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), a non-governmental organization that analyzes educational curricula worldwide. Specifically, these findings are detailed in reports such as “UNRWA Education: Textbooks and Terror” (November 2023) and earlier related reviews of the Palestinian Authority (PA) curriculum used in UNRWA schools. The IMPACT-se reports document the systematic inclusion of antisemitic themes, the promotion of violent jihad as a duty, and the veneration of terrorists like Dalal al-Mughrabi—who was responsible for the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre—as “heroes” in subjects including Arabic language and Islamic Education.

3. UN Watch Report, January 2025 (citing intelligence estimates). Documentation of UNRWA staff with Hamas/PIJ affiliations and involvement in incitement.

4. Christopher Boucek, “Saudi Arabia’s ‘Soft’ Counterterrorism Strategy: Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Aftercare,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2008). https://carnegieendowment.org/2008/09/22/saudi-arabia-s-soft-counterterrorism-strategy-prevention-rehabilitation-and-aftercare-pub-22155

5. Congressional Research Service, “Terrorist Financing: Hamas and Cryptocurrency Fundraising,” updated Dec 9 2024. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12537

6. UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) which is solely dedicated to responding to the needs of the 750,000 Palestinian refugees. And did you know that Western Countries contribute the lion’s share of UNRWA’s $1.6 Billion-dollar annual Budget. I love when people say that Israel has committed genocide or ethnic cleansing when there are now 5 million people characterized as Palestinian Refugees because, under international law and the principle of family unity, the children of refugees and their descendants are also considered refugees until a durable solution is found.

Yet, for all of the world’s refugees, other than the palestinians, UNHCR also known as the “UN Refugee Agency” which emerged in the wake of WWII to help Europeans displaced by that conflict is the defacto organization for resettling refugees. Despite the fact that the organization was founded with a three year mission, the organization still exists today to address the more than 108 million people around the world that have been forcibly displaced as a result of conflict or persecution. UNHCR’s budget was $10.7B in 2022. That’s $99 per refugee. You can find more statistics here: https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-we-are/figures-glance

So let’s see $10B for the World’s 100M+ refugees and $1B for the Palestinian’s 5M refugees. Note that means the UN spends nearly 4x the amount spent per refugee when compared to every other refugee in the world. On its face that should make you question why the Palestinian Refugees have such status amongst the world’s refugees.

For more insights, please read this article entitled “What to Know about UNRWA and Its Controversial Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”

7. USAID Office of Inspector General, “Investigative summary: USAID OIG’s investigative work to prevent UNRWA staff associated with Hamas from circulating…” Apr 14 2025. https://oig.usaid.gov/node/7597