This week, a seemingly monumental event occurred — one vastly celebrated by peace-loving people of all faiths throughout the world: an ostensible ceasefire and peace treaty between the Jewish state of Israel and the American-recognized terrorist organization Hamas.  As the civilized world welcomed the return of Israelis kidnapped, tortured, and held hostage in Gaza since October 7, 2023, President Trump landed in the Middle East and took a well deserved victory lap for brokering this putative cessation of hostilities. 

To achieve his goal, the president, at least for the moment, was able to convince not only Hamas, but also the outlying Islamic Arab nations that it was in the best interest of all to end this war based upon the following 20 precepts:

1. Gaza will be a terror-free zone.
2. Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza.
3. If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end.
4. Within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned.
5. Once all hostages are released, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners.
6. Once all hostages are returned, Hamas members who commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty.
7. Upon acceptance of this agreement, full aid will be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip.
8. Entry of distribution and aid in the Gaza Strip will proceed without interference from the two parties.
9. Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee.
10. A Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza will be created.
11. A special economic zone will be established with preferred tariff and access rates.
12. No one will be forced to leave Gaza.  Those who wish to leave will be free to do so.
13. Hamas and other factions agree not to have any role in the governance of Gaza.
14. A guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas, and the factions, comply with their obligations.
15. The United States will work with Arab and international partners to develop a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF).
16. Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza.
17. In the event Hamas delays or rejects this proposal, the above, including the scaled up aid operation, will proceed in the terror-free areas handed over from the IDF to the ISF.
18. An interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful co-existence.
19. While Gaza re-development advances and when the P.A. reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.
20. The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence.

Based upon these principles, a ceasefire deal was signed in Egypt.  To the joy of their families and loved ones, 20 hostages were released by the terrorists.

Sounds great, but so did the Kellogg Briand Pact, signed and ratified in Paris in 1928, outlawing war.  Like today in Israel and the United States, large crowds gathered to watch world leaders celebrate an “end to war.”  Many reports describe jammed streets filled with cheering supporters.  Unfortunately, without clear-cut provisos for military enforcement, the pact quickly disintegrated barely three years later with Japan’s invasion of Manchuria and Italy’s incursion in Ethiopia in 1935.  Few people then recognized that the worst was yet to come at the end of the decade.

Long before the hatred and malevolence brought on by the creation of Hamas in 1987, the all-time proponent of turpitude and degeneracy toward Jews, Adolf Hitler, came upon the world stage.  Barely ten years subsequent to the pact, the specter of war once again loomed over Europe. 

In a misguided attempt to avoid war on the continent, Neville Chamberlain, then prime minister of England, met with Hitler in Munich, Germany and signed an agreement recognizing the tyrant’s right to annex an area within Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland.  Once again, the eternal false hope for peace encouraged just the opposite in what became infamously known as the “Peace in Our Time” speech.

Chamberlain, like Trump today, triumphantly returned home to overwhelming adulation.  With signed documents in hand, he proclaimed that war with Germany had been averted.  How wrong he was.

What does any of this have to do with Israel, Hamas, and peace?  To skeptics, myself included, everything.

Like these two sad moments in history and the laudable efforts of both the president and prime minister, in no way does the signing of documents this week constitute a peace treaty.  So let’s bypass the current Pollyannaish optimism and recognize the real irreconcilable issues that stand in its way.

To begin with, this “agreement” references only Hamas, not Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), ISIS-Sinai, Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Muslim Brotherhood, and other nefarious groups sworn to Israel’s destruction.

As to Point 5 of the agreement — “Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners” — these are 250 of the most dastardly terrorists, serving life sentences for the most unimaginable terrorist acts.  It must be remembered that Yahya Sinwar, the architect of 10/7, was among the 1,000 terrorists once released in exchange for Gilad Shalit.

Point 6: “Hamas members who commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty.”  According to the New York Post, Hamas has already reneged upon laying down its weapons.

Point 13: “Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza.”  Reasserting its power in Gaza, Hamas has already declared a policy of retribution violating this principle.

Point 14: “A guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas will comply with their obligations.”  In reality, “regional nations are providing military personnel to the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), an international task force that includes US personnel: but there will be no boots on the ground in Gaza and the international force will surprisingly be based in Israel.”

Point 18: “An interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful co-existence.”  The question remains: Where in the teachings of the Quran and Hadith does political, imperialistic Islam proclaim interfaith dialogue and peaceful co-existence?

Point 19: “The conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”  Based upon the viciousness and depravity inflicted upon Israeli citizens, and the unrequited terrorist pledge to repeat it again and again, the likelihood of Israeli acquiescence to a Palestinian state in the near or foreseeable future is nil.

Lacking unconditional, clear-cut military victory over this recalcitrant foe, the realization is a shaky ceasefire at best.  It is anything but the Peace in Our Time people are yearning for in the Middle East.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.