A firsthand warning from the frontline: Islamist terror is an existential, ideological threat — require decisive, relentless action to destroy terrorist networks, choke their financing, and defend Western values.
Dear Mr. President,
Welcome to the Middle East.
There is a difference between doing business with organized crime and confronting a millennial, theocratic movement that seeks global conquest. The Mafia operates by profit, honor among its members, and predictable retaliation — the price of a bargain struck in blood. Hamas and the other Islamist death cults are not shopkeepers of crime. They are True Believers: apocalyptic, absolutist, and inexorably committed to a global caliphate. They do not bargain. They convert, subjugate, or murder.
Hamas, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah — along with the patron states and financiers who enable them — are driven by ideology, not commerce. They are not negotiating partners. They are enemies of pluralism, of women’s rights, of free thought, and of the very idea of open societies. Their cruelty is public and systematic: public executions, clan-based vendettas, the ritualized suppression of dissent. These are not the quirks of a lost culture; they are the operating instructions of movements that celebrate sadism and martyrdom.
When they accept a “cease-fire,” understand what it often means: respite to rebuild, rearm, and recommit to the same campaign of terror. Lies and tactical truces are tools in their manual. That is not paranoia — it is lived experience. I learned this hard in Kabul, where I witnessed, and later escaped, a society structured around brutality: legalized cruelty, normalized child abuse, the degradation of women, and a political culture that punishes free expression. I returned home to disbelief. It took years for scholars and publics to catch up to the facts I had brought back.
Western societies, by temperament and ideology, assume others want what we have: free speech, gender equality, democratic pluralism. Too often we project our expectations onto peoples and movements that do not share them. That failure to grasp difference is costly. It produces naïveté, appeasement, and strategic paralysis.
Mr. President: if we are to protect our citizens and our values, we must act with clarity of purpose. Hamas must be dismantled as a military and governance force: tunnels filled, weapons stockpiles eliminated, command networks smashed. Equally critical is cutting the funding, logistics, and sanctuaries that sustain terrorism — at home and abroad. That means relentless intelligence work, stronger enforcement against extremist fundraising, and international pressure on states and entities that bankroll terror.
Do not mistake my urgency for bloodlust. This is a strategic imperative. Democracies must wield force intelligently and lawfully, while mobilizing political, financial, and diplomatic levers to deny extremists the means to operate. We must also wage a battle of ideas — defend free conscience, expose theocratic brutality, and support the brave dissenters inside closed societies who risk everything to speak the truth.
Time is not our ally. Delay allows the enemy to regenerate. Act decisively, coordinate internationally, and make plain the stakes: this is a struggle for the survival of liberal civilization against an ideology that prizes death over coexistence.
Sincerely,
Phyllis Chesler is a renowned American feminist, psychologist, author, and professor emerita at the City University of New York. A pioneering figure in second-wave feminism, she is known for her influential books, including Women and Madness and An American Bride in Kabul. Chesler co-founded several organizations, such as the Association for Women in Psychology and the National Women’s Health Network, and is a vocal advocate for human rights, Israel and Jewish causes.Phyllis Chesler is a renowned American feminist, psychologist, author, and professor emerita at the City University of New York. A pioneering figure in second-wave feminism, she is known for her influential books, including Women and Madness and An American Bride in Kabul. Chesler co-founded several organizations, such as the Association for Women in Psychology and the National Women’s Health Network, and is a vocal advocate for human rights, Israel and Jewish causes.
