The problem with Gaza reconstruction is not simply how much money will be spent. It is whether anyone in Washington has the political courage to ensure American taxpayers are no longer subsidizing the same failed systems that helped produce the Hamas massacre of Israelis (and Americans as well as nationals of over 30 other countries) on October 7, 2023, in the first place.

If Team Trump does not course-correct, and especially if a future Democratic administration or Democratic Congress swings the pendulum back toward a pre–October 7 approach to aid to Palestinians, the United States is setting Israel up for another cycle of violence. Whether Gaza is governed by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, or some repackaged successor structure under the supervision of the Board of Peace, the deeper political culture and humanitarian incentive systems remain largely untouched.

That is the uncomfortable reality almost nobody in the international community wants to admit.

“Pay-for-slay” structures that reward terrorism are in direct violation of US law, the Taylor Force Act. Yet the Palestinian Authority continues to provide lifetime stipends to terrorists and their families. The glorification of violence in schools and media persists. Textbooks have not been changed in decades and still teach the language of terror and the elimination of the Jewish people from the land of Israel. Eliminationist rhetoric toward Israel, with unending use of language to globalize the intifada, continues unabated. Suppression of dissent is a constant. Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian Authority, and other unaccountable Palestinian leaders clamp down on anyone who might stick their head up to protest corruption, honor killings, and the abuse of humanitarian systems. That does not skirt the bounds of terrorism; it is terrorism. 

Yet Washington’s foreign-policy establishment and the sprawling humanitarian bureaucracy still behave as though more aid alone can stabilize Gaza. This flawed thinking failed catastrophically before October 7, and there is little evidence that policymakers, the UN, and self-righteous NGOs have truly reckoned with why. Meanwhile, 50 Americans were murdered by Gazans on........

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