Which Is Stronger: A Riviera Or An Ideology? – An Early Warning To President Trump

Peloni:  A short message for President Trump:  Your peace plan is based on previously failed fantasies, using previously used support of terrorists as peace makers, while expecting something different than the previously resulting wars and slaughters…

Yigal Carmon | MEMRI | Jan 30, 2026

An image that Jared Kushner presented at the Board of Peace signing ceremony in Davos on January 22. Screengrab via Youtube.

Without buying into this dichotomy, which is simplistic and maybe even immoral when applied to post-War Gaza, it is clear that, the answer is as follows: In the Arab world in general, ideology – both religious and nationalistic – is stronger than any Riviera, while in the West, the ideal of the good life, though not necessarily a Riviera, prevails.

The good life in a true sense could have been a goal for post-War Gaza had the leaders involved sought peace with Israel, but they do not. Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood want to eliminate Israel, not make peace with it. The images that Jared Kushner presented at the Board of Peace signing ceremony in Davos on January 22 and the vision it represents are far weaker for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood than the ideology of eliminating Israel.

President Trump lowers his plan’s chances of success still further by bringing to the Board of Peace corrupt jihadi friends: Erdo?an of Turkey, Al-Shaara of Syria, Munir of Pakistan, and Tamim of Qatar.

It may well be that precisely because President Trump knows those leaders to be corrupt, he believes that they carry no true ideological commitments, hence they will sell their Islamism for money.

This is a mistaken assumption that emanates from a belief common in the West that one is either corrupt or ideological; one can be both and these leaders certainly are.

President Trump and, by their own words on 60 Minutes,[1] his assistants Kushner and Witkoff, insist that all people want a good life. They are dead wrong.

The reality of Gaza prior to October 7 proves that. The good life that was there can still be seen in video broadcast by the BBC, TRT, and Al-Jazeera as well as local and Gazan influeners.[2] Ismail Haniyeh’s son said that a few years ago, Kushner had offered his father tens of billions and the establishment of a state in Gaza, but the leader of Hamas rejected it.[3]

They were thriving in Gaza before October 7, but gave it up to fight a hopeless fight to eliminate Israel. Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood preferred war to achieve their goals over the good life in any sense of the word. Religious fanatics like these prefer destroying other people’s lives to having a good life of their own; for them, jihad to eliminate Israel is the good life. Through it you win “one of two good things”: either “mundane victory” or martyrdom which wins you eternal life in paradise.

President Trump certainly planned his recent alliance with jihadi leaders in order to use them for America’s sake, but at the same time he let down his true allies. At the end of the day, a leader of a nation, particularly of the United States, must represent a moral compass. An alliance with jihadis is just the opposite, and it can only lead to an explosion long before the end of President Trump’s second term.

While he aligned himself with them, they did not align themselves with him: All of them are openly acting against America’s and his own interests. They all recruited themselves to support Iran and prevent an American attack despite the tens of thousands of demonstrators murdered by the regime. They are all supporting terrorist groups that are acting against the United States – Hamas, the IRGC, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, the militias in Iraq, the Muslim Brotherhood – everywhere.

What kind of alliance is this?

I wish President Trump could read this one pager. Tragically, there is no hope for that.

*Yigal Carmon is founder and president of MEMRI.