GATESTONE
US Direct Talks with Hamas: Legitimizing and Empowering Terrorists
Khaled Abu Toameh
March 19, 2026

…The Trump administration is making a huge mistake by engaging an Islamist terror group. Direct talks with Hamas, officially designated by the US government as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, risk conferring legitimacy on a group that rejects Israel’s right to exist and for decades has carried out attacks against countless Israeli civilians. Engagement clearly signals to terrorists that violence is an effective path to power, land, and international recognition. Hamas is a group that is explicitly and fundamentally committed, in both ideology and practice, to “armed resistance” (terrorism). Hamas’s October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel was a large-scale terror operation that illustrated the group’s commitment to terrorism. Senior Hamas officials have repeatedly vowed that they fully intend to continue such attacks. Hamas is hardly a controversial political actor. The group, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, aims to establish an Islamic state encompassing the entirety of present-day Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, through armed conflict. READ MORE