In a bizarre segment during Monday’s CNN News Central, Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid argued that Israel should not try to kill any of the “low-level members of Hamas” who were not directly “implicated in October 7.” He also called for them to be fully “integrated” into the government again because they’re a “popular movement” among Palestinians and even pointed to the Nazis as a good example.
When host Brianna Keilar questioned Hamid about what the future of Hamas looked like under this latest ceasefire, he touted how it gave a “path for Hamas members” to lay down their arms:
KEILAR: Where do you see Hamas's role in this? Where do you see the Palestinian authority? What does that look like to you?
SHADI HAMID: Yeah, so I mean, the real question is how do you disarm Hamas? And that is not yet quite clear how that's to be worked out. But also, it's good that in the 20-point plan there is a path for Hamas members who commit to peaceful coexistence and give up their arms to get amnesty or get safe passage outside of Gaza, because at the end of the day, there are still going to be – there still will be a significant Hamas presence.
The comment that even had Keilar raising an eyebrow was about how Israel shouldn’t actually want to eradicate Hamas. “So you can't just pretend they don't exist and you can't eradicate every single member of Hamas, nor should you,” he proclaimed.
Keilar interrupted and asked for Hamid to elaborate on what he meant by that. He proceeded to defend the rest of Hamas who were not part of the thousands who took part in the October 7 attack, as if that meant they were innocent terrorists. He also lied that the only people who took part were the commanders:
KEILAR: You say “nor should you,” your case for that is what?
HAMID: I mean. You can't. You shouldn't kill like low-level members of Hamas, people who were not implicated in October 7. 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?
Militarily, that makes no sense. Hamas would be in the only fighting force in the world that employees only commanders to do the fighting rather than grunts who took orders.
He went on to argue that Hamas should be allowed to be integrated into the government again because they’re a “popular movement” and even pointed to the Nazis as an example:
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 towards a kind of peaceful settlement.
And even if you take the example of de-nazification, 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,” he declared. Meanwhile, Hamas spent Monday carrying out the extrajudicial killing of opposition groups inside Gaza.
Historically, the allies wanted to go further with the de-nazification of Germany but were forced to pivot their attention away after the Soviet Union decided that it wanted to be the world’s problem and the Cold War started. And since Hamid wanted to use WWII comparisons, what President Trump’s plan called for was something more akin to the U.S. administration of Japan.
In reaction to a NewsBusters clip of his comments on X, Hamid argued, “My position is Trump's position. It's clearly spelled out in his 20-point plan.” He highlighted this passage from point six: “Hamas members who commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty.”
NewsBusters questioned Hamid about his lie regard only Hamas commanders taking part in October 7 and pointed out that he also tried to absolve the Hamas members who didn’t take part in the attack. He did not respond as of the publication of this piece.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
CNN News Central
October 13, 2025
2:10:39 p.m. Eastern(…)
BRIANNA KEILAR: Where do you see Hamas's role in this? Where do you see the Palestinian authority? What does that look like to you?
SHADI HAMID: Yeah, so I mean, the real question is how do you disarm Hamas? And that is not yet quite clear how that's to be worked out. But also, it's good that in the 20-point plan there is a path for Hamas members who commit to peaceful coexistence and give up their arms to get amnesty or get safe passage outside 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 – and that didn't even happen. Not that I like this comparison too much, but when you talk –
KEILAR: You say “nor should you,” your case for that is what?
HAMID: I mean. You can't. You shouldn't kill like low-level members of Hamas, people who were not implicated in October 7. 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 towards a kind of peaceful settlement.
And even if you take the example of de-nazification, 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.
KEILAR: Shadi Hamid, great to have you. Thank you so much for being with us.
HAMID: Thanks for having me.