The White House is afflicted with peace derangement syndrome. President Donald Trump seems determined to do peace deals at any cost—even if that means negotiating with dictators and terrorists. Last week, President Trump accepted a $400 million plane from Qatar, which sponsors Hamas, and made an agreement with the new regime in Syria, which is jihadist. This week, he praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin as a “nice gentleman.”

No matter how evil the negotiating partner, President Trump seems to share his envoy Steve Witkoff’s maxim: “Anything can be solved with dialogue.” This is deadly naiveté. Contrary to reports, these deals are making America weaker, not stronger.

My father, Philadelphia Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry, wrote an article about this just days after the inauguration. It was titled “President Trump Betrayed Israel.” It focused on how the United States—under President Trump—intervened to save the Hamas terrorists from destruction. Yes, the same Hamas terrorists who, in recent memory, savaged, tortured, raped and murdered more than 1,000 men, women, children and babies.

Of course, President Trump and his administration viewed this deal as a breakthrough for peace. Not until weeks later did Witkoff admit that Hamas negotiators may have “duped” him into thinking they wanted peace. But it seems like the Trump administration continues to get “duped,” perhaps willingly! It has learned nothing from this failure. For all the power he has and is willing to wield, President Trump is still deluded about peace!

The president and his administration are making their decisions based on total trust in the innate “goodness” of human nature. These officials seem to think that if they compromise and do their best to hammer out good terms for everyone, everyone will work together to have peace. Yet the Bible says the human heart is desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). So Trump, Witkoff and other U.S. foreign-policy leaders are going to be duped over and over again, and people are going to suffer and die because of it!

The late Herbert W. Armstrong was often called an unofficial ambassador for world peace. He met with hundreds of world leaders—presidents, prime ministers, kings, emperors, princes, legislators, ambassadors, generals, officers, mayors, judges, scientists, educators, magnates and executives. But Mr. Armstrong would have never met with the type of people President Trump is negotiating with. In 1982, he refused to meet with Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yassar Arafat because he was a terrorist. Yet President Trump is effectively negotiating with the even more savage and dishonest organization of Hamas.

Mr. Armstrong understood that the way to peace is to live God’s give way of life. Terrorists like Arafat have no interest in giving to others. Like Satan, they are liars and murderers—negotiation with them is pointless. At best, it is a waste of time; at worst, it leads to dangerous compromises that hurt others.

Regarding President Trump’s deal with Hamas, British journalist Melanie Phillips wrote, “Trump doesn’t want a war on his watch. He has virtually promised the American people that he will bring an end to war. But sometimes an enemy arises with whom any agreement is a deal with the devil.” This is absolutely right!

President Trump was able to make some progress toward peace between India and Pakistan, because both sides were willing to take legitimate steps toward peace. Yet Hamas, Qatar, Russia and Syria are different stories. The Bible likens their leaders to brute beasts who no longer have human minds.

In his April Trumpet article “Does Donald Trump Know the Way to Peace?”, my father described how human leaders can become possessed by an evil spirit, including, in extreme cases, Satan the devil. He wrote that certain leaders of great powers in history “no longer had the minds of human beings. They had the hearts of wild, raving beasts! That is why these empires are called beasts: They were ruled by men who took on the mind of a beast! There is a crucial spiritual dimension to their transformation. These men who became so brutal had given themselves over to an evil spirit. Such beastly thinking is inspired by Satan the devil!”

It is delusional to think you can make peace with such beastly leaders. Sir Winston Churchill understood this basic principle. When many British leaders thought a few more negotiations and concessions would bring peace with Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler, Churchill sounded a warning—an extremely unpopular warning—in the House of Commons (Nov. 23, 1932):

Now the demand is that Germany should be allowed to rearm. Do not delude yourselves. Do not let his majesty’s government believe—I am sure they do not believe—that all that Germany is asking for is equal status. I believe the refined term now is “equal qualitative status” or, as an alternative, equal quantitative status by indefinitely deferred stages. That is not what Germany is seeking. All these bands of sturdy Teutonic youths, marching through the streets and roads of Germany with the light of desire in their eyes to suffer for their fatherland, are not looking for status. They are looking for weapons, and when they have the weapons, believe me, they will then ask for the return of lost territories and lost colonies.

The same could be said about Hamas today. Palestinian terrorists are not looking for equal qualitative status—I believe the refined term now is “two-state solution.” They are looking for weapons to kill Jews. They couldn’t get those weapons without Qatar!

President Trump can sit down and negotiate with Qatar all he wants, but these negotiations will not bring peace. Isaiah prophesied that “the ambassadors of peace shall weep bitterly” (Isaiah 33:7), and Hosea prophesied that the leaders of end-time Israel (i.e. America and Britain) would be “like a silly dove without heart” (Hosea 7:11).

The Hebrew word for “silly” here implies gullibility or naivety more than stupidity. Neither Donald Trump nor Steve Witkoff are stupid men, but they naively trust that men like Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Vladimir Putin. In other words, they have “peace derangement syndrome” or “silly dove syndrome.”

Even when so many smart and powerful men saw differently, Churchill perceived the truth. He was, effectively, the only one! But as Ezekiel prophesied, this man that “the people of the land [took] of their coasts, and set him for their watchman” has come and gone (Ezekiel 33:2). Now the only watchman warning us today is an actual prophet: “So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me” (verse 7).

This time, the people must listen not just to an elected leader who will tell them hard truths about national survival, but one who will also tell them to repent of their sins!

As Ezekiel prophesied, God commands His end-time watchman to warn America’s leaders of the truth, no matter how unpopular, alerting them to the dangers that surround them and pointing them to God. Dialogue will not bring peace. Concessions will not bring peace. The fact that America, of all nations, and President Trump, of all presidents, are engaging in both with actual terrorists is proof that this fatal weakness runs deep and only God can cure us of it!

Back then, listening to Churchill helped save Britain and America. Today, listening to God’s watchman and genuinely repenting toward God is the only way to save nations—or individuals.

Request your free copy of Winston S. Churchill—the Watchman, by Gerald Flurry.