‘Hamas Is A Popular Movement’: WaPo Reporter Tells CNN ‘Low-Level’ Terrorists Should Get To Stay

Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid said on Monday that Israel cannot — and should not — root out every member of the terrorist group Hamas as it begins to implement the provisions of the peace deal brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Hamid was speaking with CNN anchor Brianna Keilar about the still-unfolding situation in Gaza when he argued that Israel should offer amnesty to “low-level” members of Hamas who have agreed to lay down their weapons — and those “who were not implicated in October 7.”

WATCH:

On CNN, Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid says Israel “shouldn’t kill low-level members of Hamas, people who where not implicated in October 7” because “Hamas is a popular movement” and must be integrated into the new Gaza government. pic.twitter.com/27I823cqHN

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) October 13, 2025

“How do you disarm Hamas – that is not quite clear how that’s to be worked out,” he began. “But also it’s good that in the 20-point plan there is a path for Hamas who commit to peaceful coexistence and give up their arms to get amnesty or to get safe passage out of Gaza, because at the end of the day, there are still going to be – there still will be a significant Hamas presence, so you can’t just pretend they don’t exist. And you can’t eradicate every single member of Hamas, nor should you, that would just be — that didn’t even happen, not that I like this comparison too much —”

“You say ‘nor should you,'” Keilar appeared to be taken aback. “Your case for that is what?”

“I mean you can’t — you shouldn’t kill, like, low-level members of Hamas, people who were not implicated in October 7th,” Hamid asserted. “October 7th was done by a small group of senior military commanders — Israel should have the right to kill them, and has killed many of them if not most of them, right? So — but Hamas is a popular movement and there has to be some way to bring in the low-level members into the political process because you don’t want them to play spoiler.”

“If they feel like they have no path forward, if they feel — you don’t want them to go back to arms again or to find ways to kind of undermine the path toward a kind of peaceful settlement,” he continued, comparing Hamas to the Nazis in post-war Germany. “And even if you take the example of denazification, low- and mid-level members of the Nazi Party were reintegrated into German society. It’s not as if everyone was imprisoned or executed, because you can’t do that at such a large scale. If you’re talking about a movement that has tens of thousands of people and many more sympathizers, you have to find a way to bring people into the process and integrate them.”

The peace deal currently being implemented stops short of forcing Hamas out altogether despite Israel’s repeated insistence that Hamas cannot be allowed to govern in Gaza.