The Only Way to Disarm Hamas and Hezbollah
Peace requires disarmament. Disarmament requires reality.
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For years, many people have repeated a comforting line: Once the fighting stops, disarmament will follow.
The idea is simple and appealing — lay down the weapons, strengthen the political process, and allow peace to take root.
But groups like Hezbollah and Hamas do not operate according to the hopes of the West, and they will not surrender their arsenals because diplomats request it. If peace truly requires disarmament, then disarmament itself requires a sober confrontation with reality.
Hezbollah and Hamas are not merely militias; they are ideological movements and deeply entrenched political actors. Their weapons are more than tools; they are symbols of identity, sources of leverage, and instruments of power.
Moreover, they purposely embed themselves into daily life. Both groups take advantage of poor Gazans and Lebanese by offering stipends, social services, and religious structures in exchange for political loyalty.
And where persuasion fails, pressure often takes its place. Ordinary people know there can be serious consequences for refusing to go along with the group’s demands, including tortue, imprisonment, and even death. In environments shaped by fear, dependency, and limited alternatives, disarmament is not a simple matter of asking communities to “choose peace,” especially when choosing peace for this part of the world means establishing a Caliphate built on coercion and the subjugation of anyone outside of Islam.
And so, groups built on narratives of “resistance” do not disarm voluntarily. Within the political culture of Hamas, Hezbollah, and similar movements, compromise is portrayed as surrender, and surrender is framed as humiliation. These organizations operate in an honor-shame dynamic where strength is equated with perpetual defiance and “resistance,” while negotiation signals weakness that must be punished. Their entire identity — their mythology, their propaganda, their internal politics — is built on performing strength, projecting honor, and avoiding shame at all costs.
In this worldview, admitting failure, laying down arms, or acknowledging defeat is not just politically costly; it is existentially unacceptable. Leaders fear internal backlash, rival factions, and the loss of authority. Fighters fear appearing weak in front of their peers. Civilians who depend on these groups for protection or resources know that questioning them can lead to reprisals. When honor is tied to never bending and shame is tied to even the smallest concession, voluntary disarmament is impossible.
This is why agreements fail, ceasefires collapse, and promises evaporate the moment pressure is lifted. These groups are structured to survive through confrontation, not coexistence. Their sense of “honor” is tied to continued conflict. Their obsession with “shame” is tied to any gesture that resembles compromise. And until the incentives change, until the cost of holding onto weapons becomes greater than the cost of giving them up, they will not choose peace as we know it in the West.
In other conflicts where armed movements have eventually laid down their weapons — whether the Irish Republican Army, the paramilitaries in Colombia, or the militias in the Balkans — it happened only after overwhelming pressure, credible political alternatives, and strong enforcement mechanisms existed simultaneously. The Middle East is not an exception to this pattern; it simply presents a more complicated version of it.
What makes disarmament even more difficult is that these groups do not stand alone. External sponsors like Iran, Qatar, and Turkey provide funding, political cover, and logistical support. You cannot ask an organization to stop fighting while its backers continue to fuel its operations. So long as powerful states see value in keeping these groups armed, disarmament remains an uphill battle. It is like trying to shut off a machine while someone else is actively plugging it back in.
Despite this, many international actors continue to treat disarmament as a matter of paperwork — as though a United Nations resolution, ceasefire clause, or monitoring mission could achieve what force, pressure, and regional alignment have not. But the history of such agreements is clear: Without real enforcement, they change nothing. Inspectors can observe, but they cannot dismantle. Peacekeepers can accompany, but they cannot enforce. The gap between diplomatic language and on-the-ground reality has frequently allowed armed groups to rearm faster than the civilized world can strategize.
And yet, there is one single country that is expected by far too many people to negotiate with its self-professed enemies and restrain itself from their constant threats. This is nonsense to say the least.
Israel’s only responsibility is to protect Israelis. It is not Israel’s job to govern Lebanon, police Hezbollah, or safeguard Gazans from the consequences of their own rulers’ decisions. Every nation has an obligation to shield its own population; Lebanon is responsible for Lebanese civilians, and whoever governs Gaza is responsible for the safety of Gazans.
When armed groups choose to embed themselves among schools, hospitals, and residential neighborhoods, they are the ones placing civilians in danger. That tactic cannot require Israel to accept permanent vulnerability or to hold its fire at the expense of its own citizens’ security.
While it may come as a surprise to some, Gazans and Lebanese are human beings like people anywhere else; they’re capable of agency, capable of forming movements, and capable of shaping their political future. Around the world, populations living under dysfunctional or abusive leadership have organized, protested, pressured, and appealed to the international community to demand better governance.
None of this is easy; it never has been. But history is filled with examples of societies that refused to accept the leadership imposed on them and gradually built the momentum needed for change. The fact that it is difficult does not mean it is impossible. And it does not absolve the ruling authorities in Gaza or Lebanon of their responsibility to protect their own civilians, nor does it transfer that responsibility onto Israel.
We must also confront the reality that many Gazans and Lebanese actively support Hamas and Hezbollah. They are not merely passive bystanders; they participate in, and often believe in, the political and ideological systems these groups enforce. When civilians provide consent — whether implicit or explicit, passive or active — they become complicit in the actions of the groups they empower.
This means that responsibility for the consequences of these groups’ choices cannot be shifted entirely onto Israel or the international community. Support for terrorist organizations carries consequences, whether moral, political, or practical, and history shows that populations that endorse militant governance often share in the risks it creates.
For many Gazans and some Lebanese, Hamas and Hezbollah are not seen as “terror groups” at all; they are simply the institutions that have dominated daily life for years. When an organization controls your schools, your mosques, your social services, your electricity, and your food distribution, it stops looking like a militia and starts looking like the default structure of society. This is exactly how Hamas and Hezbollah maintain their grip: by normalizing their rule so thoroughly that, for many people, there is no visible alternative.
This creates a fundamental collision of worldviews. Israel is a country built on life, liberty, individual rights, and democratic norms. Hamas and Hezbollah, and those who support or depend on them, operate under a completely different set of values — ones shaped by authoritarian rule, religious absolutism, and a political culture that glorifies “resistance” more than it values civilian life.
When one side seeks coexistence and the other side seeks annihilation, the result is not “miscommunication”; it is bloody conflict. And when Hamas or Hezbollah initiate that conflict, as they often do, Israel has every right, and indeed the obligation, to defend its citizens with the force required to stop those threats. Security and sovereignty are not academic concepts; they are lived necessities. Defense is rarely clean, but the responsibility for violence lies with those who start wars, not those who are forced to fight them.
Of course, anyone with a proper moral system knows that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations through and through. While international bodies like the United Nations can’t seem to agree on a definition of terrorism — largely due to the influence of Muslim-majority countries and the reluctance to make (factual) statements (stupidly) perceived as “Islamophobic” — the reality on the ground is clear. Terrorism is the deliberate use of violence, especially against civilians, to achieve political, ideological, or military goals. Hamas and Hezbollah employ such tactics regularly and systematically.
What’s more, there is a direct connection between Islam and terrorism. Throughout history and to this day, Islam has frequently been linked to violence and conquest. From early Caliphates to later regional conflicts, religious ideology has often been used to justify war, expansion, and oppression — including Muslim-on-Muslim. This historical reality cannot be ignored when examining groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, who similarly invoke Islam to legitimize attacks and maintain control.
Acknowledging this truth is not about blaming entire populations or religions; it is about recognizing the methods and intentions of organizations that deliberately use Islam to advance their agendas. Calling a spade a spade is the first step toward building strategies that protect civilians and hold perpetrators accountable.
Complicating matters further, some governments and organizations actually benefit from the current status quo (keeping Hamas and Hezbollah alive and in power). Armed groups can serve as political pressure points, bargaining chips, or ideological trophies. Some international institutions prefer the illusion of “managed conflict” over the hard work of real resolution. Even NGOs sometimes prioritize symbolic gestures over the difficult steps required to remove weapons from groups that define themselves by them. Disarmament is not only a military challenge; it is a political one, and not everyone involved wants it to succeed.
A realistic path forward must begin with acknowledging that peace is not the absence of active fighting; it is the presence of order strong enough to prevent fighting from returning. That requires a legitimate governing authority to replace militia rule, regional consensus that armed non-state actors can no longer be tolerated, strict border controls that make rearmament difficult, accountability for states that arm and fund these groups, and a long-term commitment from global powers rather than fleeting diplomatic performances. These are not idealistic demands; they are the minimum conditions any serious disarmament effort requires.
In the end, peace is not achieved when war temporarily falls silent. Peace is achieved when the structures that make violence possible are dismantled and replaced with institutions strong enough to endure. That cannot happen as long as armed groups hijack authority without any real consequences, both to them and their state sponsors.
And, when it comes to Muslim Arab groups, it must be stated: It’s quite necessary to fight fire with fire. That means waging war (military, cyber, etc.) against their military capabilities, choking off their finances, and targeting the entire ecosystem that empowers them: their political leadership, their foreign sponsors, and the states that shelter and fund them. Deterrence is not built on hope or goodwill; it is built on serious, long-term consequences.
Fortunately, Israel is quite literally the world leader in understanding and confronting Islamic terrorism. No nation on earth has faced as many coordinated, ideology‑driven attempts to destroy it — and no nation has developed more effective tools, intelligence methods, counter‑terror strategies, and technologies to fight back.
Instead of lecturing Israel, restraining it, or demanding it follow standards no other country follows under existential threat, Western leaders should be studying Israel’s methods. Countries across Europe, Africa, and even parts of Asia now grappling with jihadist violence could learn far more by listening to Israel than by trying to limit it. Israel has become the global test case for how a free society protects itself against Islamists, and the lesson is simple: Strength works, while moral hesitation only emboldens terrorists.
So let it be clear: Peace requires disarmament. Disarmament requires reality. And the sooner we accept that truth, the sooner we can deploy strategies capable of turning aspiration into outcome.
Islamism is the core of Islam, ‘spreading The Faith by the Sword’. Thus, only absolute Strength can match Islam, and defend non-Muslims from Islam. Start here. For this is the Reality in The Middle East, and for The West too.
I think most Western leaders understand the situation quite well. So the real issue isn’t the goal — every Western nation wants Islamism to fade — but how to achieve it. After the major failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, where attempts to change reality through military force backfired, Western policymakers concluded that containment is preferable to pressure. The idea is that the less pressure placed on Muslim societies, the harder it will be for Islamist ideology to spread among them — and that DEI will eventually undermine the foundations on which Islamism stands. October 7th taught Israel that this policy will not work either.
But most Western political elites don’t believe they have any alternative strategy and continue to insist that containment and DEI are the only way forward.
However, there is one. Instead of trying to weaken Islamism directly, the West should focus on strengthening itself from within. If it succeeds, it can restore its internal resilience and, in time, rebalance the global power dynamic — which could eventually lead to peace.
Unfortunately, those in the West who do try to strengthen their societies often do so from a religious or nationalist platform, which alienate the liberal parts of society. So the key question becomes whether the liberal side can offer its own vision for rebuilding societal strength — and by strength, we’re talking about both demography and identity. And right now, there is simply no liberal political doctrine that offers such an alternative and provides a vision around which both the center-left and center-right can unite (and as a result, polarization is increasing, and democracy is in crisis, as we can see across the West).