U.S. President Donald Trump considers himself a masterful negotiator who can cut a deal with anybody. In his first term, he successfully negotiated the Abraham Accords, forging a long-missing peace between Israel and multiple Arab countries in the Middle East. In October, he negotiated a ceasefire that led to the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza and an end to the two-year war launched by Hamas. Last week, he announced that the U.S.-led Board of Peace had successfully negotiated “a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT” of Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza. However, both Hamas and Israel quickly dashed hopes of such a deal.

Trump has made Hamas’s disarmament a key requirement in the second phase of the ceasefire agreement that he and other Middle East partners brokered last year. But while Israel and Hamas agreed to the initial ceasefire and hostage release in stage one, the two sides are far apart on getting to the second phase of the plan, which calls for Hamas’s disarmament and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. After Trump first announced the disarmament deal last week, Hamas initially said it would begin the process of disarming after Israel withdraws from Gaza. But it also said that the bulk of its disarmament was contingent on the creation of a Palestinian state first. Israel rejected the plan outright without the full demilitarization of Gaza first. This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that Israeli forces won’t withdraw from their positions in Gaza until Hamas has fully disarmed.

What many fail to understand about this conflict is the level of Hamas’s dedication to its objectives. We must consider what disarming means for Hamas. A member of an Israel-backed Gaza militia told the Jerusalem Post that Hamas would not accept disarmament because that would leave it vulnerable to reprisals from Palestinians who have been suffering under Hamas rule for two decades. According to the unnamed militant, “People who were tortured, abused, or whose relatives were killed by Hamas will never forgive and never forget. Today, they cannot fight Hamas because the organization is armed. But even if it takes five or 10 years, people will seek to hold Hamas members accountable.”

Putting aside the personal safety of Hamas members, Hamas’s weapons are integral to the organization and its long-term strategy. In an interview earlier this week with British journalist Piers Morgan, Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad publicly declared that Hamas’s agreement to the ceasefire was part of a bigger strategy, demonstrating why U.S. efforts to disarm Hamas are ultimately futile: “Because of forced necessity, the hard circumstances in Gaza, we accept this agreement. But I think that as Hamas, I can confirm that we didn’t change our mentality, our goal to end the occupation, to continue to end the occupation with the Palestinian factions, because this is our holy mission.”

Holy mission. For Hamas, their fight isn’t just about nationalism, it’s a religious imperative. And every move is calculated in service of that goal, including ceasefires. This is what many people do not understand. It is not in Hamas’s DNA to disarm or agree to demilitarization or a permanent ceasefire. There is no flexibility on its goal because Hamas views its mission as divine. To abandon that mission would be to abandon God. Hamas’s leadership has not raised the issue of a permanent ceasefire with Israel, but instead repeatedly called for hudna, a long-term ceasefire that still has an expiration date—signifying that, ultimately, victory is the only end to the conflict for Hamas. Everything Hamas does, including the current ceasefire, is in the service of its ultimate objective. Even with the continuance of a lower level of Israeli strikes in Gaza, the current ceasefire agreed to in October has given Hamas time to regroup and catch its breath.

Hamas’s leaders have made no secret of this either. In a February conference in Doha, Qatar, former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal declared, “As long as there is occupation, there is resistance. Resistance is a right of peoples under occupation… something nations take pride in.” Meshaal also argued that disarmament would turn Palestinians into victims and “facilitate their destruction.” That same month, Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan declared that Hamas would not disarm until “the occupation” was eliminated. In Hamas’s ideology, “the occupation” means the entirety of Israel, whose very existence is anathema to Hamas’s ideology. For Hamas, the entirety of pre-1948 Palestine is occupied and must be liberated. That is the holy mission.

Hamas is not dedicated to creating a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. If it were, it would have used the past 20 years to build a thriving society in Gaza. Instead, it spent that time building training camps and weapons factories and digging a terror tunnel system bigger than London’s underground.

Hamas chose violence. At every turn. Because that is its holy mission. And that cannot be negotiated, no matter what is offered. Hamas will make temporary ceasefires as part of its long-term strategy. Periods of calm allow for Hamas to replenish its forces, but giving up its weapons would be akin to abandoning what Hamas sees as its divine mission. This is what many in the West still do not understand. And this is why, ultimately, any negotiations with Hamas are doomed to fail.