The acceptance this week by both Israel and Hamas of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan to end the war in Gaza has set in motion a series of events that could mean a partial Israeli withdrawal from the Strip and the release of all remaining Israeli hostages held by the terrorists.
But while the conclusion of the current fighting is being celebrated, it’s important to remember that none of the modifications promised by the new plan—demilitarization, collection of weapons, government by a “technocratic apolitical Palestinian committee”—will lead to peace until Point No. 1 of the Trump plan is met: “Gaza will be a deradicalized, terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.” And that is highly unlikely to happen.
For more than a century, Palestinian society in Gaza has been taught that its national purpose is not to build a homeland for itself but to destroy the Jewish one: Israel. This is not a fringe belief. It is the cultural consensus. The idea is not debated in Gaza; it is the unifying principle of all politics, culture and religion. Every Palestinian classroom, mosque, media outlet and public institution reinforces the same message: Israel must disappear, and killing Jews is the means to that end.
This ideology did not begin with Hamas. The terrorist group merely weaponized what Palestinian culture had already been preaching for generations. From the Palestinian Authority to schools run by the U.N. Relief Works for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), children have been raised to see “liberation” as synonymous with annihilation. The Palestinians’ very identity, the essence of their “national aspiration,” is built around that genocidal goal.
To claim that Gaza can become “deradicalized” without a complete cultural revolution is to mistake a slogan for a strategy.
Deradicalization is not a construction project. It cannot be achieved with Western consultants, foreign funding or a new school curriculum designed in Brussels. You cannot undo five generations of hate with a 10-year rebuilding plan. You cannot reverse generational genocidal ideology in a few months of reconstruction or a few years of “international supervision.”
Deradicalization on this scale would require decades—perhaps 50 years or more—of comprehensive education reform, strict control of media and religious institutions, and the enforcement of genuine peace education. It would mean replacing every Palestinian teacher, imam, textbook and media channel, and enforcing a moral quarantine against incitement. For several generations.
No one—not the United States, not Israel and certainly not the international community—is prepared to wait that long. The world will press ahead with rebuilding the Gaza Strip within the next decade, congratulating itself for “deradicalization” while ignoring the fact that there really has been none.
That is why Israel cannot afford to hand Gaza back until deradicalization is proven, not promised. Anything less means repeating the same cycle that led to the events of Oct. 7: withdrawal, radicalization and war.
If Gaza is ever to be rebuilt, it must first be re-educated. Until that happens, returning control to a still-hostile Palestinian society is not peacebuilding. It’s national suicide.
