Peace will come once Israel eliminates Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and other terrorist threats.

Peace will come only when Israel's settler-colonial project is dismantled. Eliminating resistance without ending colonization condemns Palestinians and the peoples of the region to perpetual colonial violence and domination.

The claim reverses cause and effect. Palestinian and regional resistance emerged in response to settler colonialism, occupation, dispossession, and decades of Israeli aggression. As in other colonial contexts, from Algeria and South Africa to Ireland, durable peace emerged only when the structures of colonial domination that produced resistance were dismantled.

Israel was established as a settler-colonial state built on the dispossession of Palestinians. Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has attacked or occupied at least 12 countries across the region. In 2025 alone, it was simultaneously attacking Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Syria, and Qatar. This record of colonial aggression alone indicates who is the primary obstacle to peace.

This claim conceals Israel's long record of bad faith in so-called "peace processes." Under Oslo, the Palestinian leadership renounced armed struggle, recognized Israel, accepted a state on only 22% of historic Palestine, and agreed to defer core issues such as refugees and settlements. Rather than move toward peace, Israel nearly tripled the settler population in the West Bank, doubled settlements, fragmented Palestinian lands into Bantustans, and intensified its military raids, culminating in the ongoing genocide since 2023. Negotiations without decolonization did not produce peace; they provided cover for deeper colonization.

During Israel's genocide in Gaza, one of the most brutal chapters in Palestinian history, Hamas repeatedly proposed agreements to release all Israeli prisoners in exchange for a permanent ceasefire, Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, and the release of Palestinian prisoners. Israel repeatedly rejected or undermined these proposals, later violated ceasefire agreements, and expanded its genocide. What undermines peace is not Hamas. It is Israel's refusal to recognize even the most basic Palestinian rights after decades of occupation, blockade, and settler colonialism.

Israel's wars with Hezbollah and Iran reveal the same pattern. During the genocide, Israel repeatedly fueled regional instability through its military aggression against Iran, killing more than 3,400 people. In Lebanon, even after the November 2024 ceasefire, Israel carried out thousands of violations, including bombings, ground invasions, killings, forced displacement, and continued occupation of Lebanese territory. The obstacle to peace is not the existence of Hezbollah or Iran. It is Israel's insistence on maintaining regional military domination.

Since its establishment, Israel has repeatedly claimed that peace will follow the defeat of the latest "terrorist threat." The targets have evolved from the PLO and PFLP to Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and others. The alleged "terrorist threat" changes, but the demand remains the same: Palestinians and the peoples of the region must submit to Israeli colonial and military domination.