Why Dialogue Dies With Extremists

When Reason Meets Radicalization: Why Facts Alone Cannot Change a Hateful Mind

This week I spoke with an Israeli man who teaches at an university in the Netherlands. What he told me stayed with me: “Trying to change someone’s mind with facts will never work. You must first find common ground.”

His idea was simple. Don’t start by saying “Israel has the right to exist,” because a committed anti-Israel activist will ignore everything after that. Instead, begin with something universal, curing cancer, raising healthy children, improving hospitals. Let them agree first. Then slowly lead them to the truth: that the people who often generate these innovations, who run some of the most advanced hospitals in the Middle East, who have brought life-saving breakthroughs to the world, are Israelis,  Jewish scientists, Jewish doctors. And if you want these benefits to reach the region, Israel must exist, must thrive.

At first, this sounded clever. Build agreement. Lead them gently to reality. But something in me resisted. And after thinking about it for days, it hit me: his method and mine, direct confrontation with facts, are fundamentally the same. Both assume one thing: that the other person is open to reason.

But many are not.
Not because they lack intelligence, but because they were raised in an environment where hatred of Jews is oxygen, breathed in from cradle to grave.

No rhetorical trick, no soft introduction, no carefully crafted “common ground” changes the mind of someone who believes your elimination is holy.

The brutal truth: You cannot reason with a worldview built on martyrdom and annihilation.

Examples are everywhere.

A young Palestinian girl, burned in a tragic accident, was treated extensively in an Israeli hospital. Israeli doctors, Jews,  saved her life. Years later, she attempted a suicide bombing in that same hospital. She failed, was treated again by Israeli doctors, and after her release said proudly in an interview that she would do it “again and again.”

This is not an isolated case.
There are countless stories of people who received Israeli medical care, work permits, humanitarian support, and still chose violence. Because in a culture where martyrdom is the highest honor, Israel’s kindness is not seen as compassion,  it is seen as weakness.

This is why “finding common ground” sounds nice in theory but collapses in reality. We do not share common ground with those whose identity is built on destroying ours.

So what is the solution?

The honest answer: not in our lifetime.
Hatred this deep does not evaporate. It must be unlearned, systematically, generationally, intentionally.

But if there is a path, it begins with three massive and difficult transformations:

1. A Radical Overhaul of the Education System

As long as children are taught that Jews are descendants of pigs and monkeys, that dying while killing Jews is the highest spiritual achievement, and that Israel will “cease to exist,” peace is impossible.

Moderation begins in the classroom.

Textbooks must change.
Teachers must change.
The moral environment must change.

This alone could take 20–30 years.

2. Removing Terror Groups From Civil Society

You cannot build moderation on top of organizations that reward murder, incentivize martyrdom, and publicly glorify those who kill. As long as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah shape culture, no amount of dialogue matters.

A society cannot move toward peace when its heroes are killers.

3. Real Integration Programs, Jobs, Exposure, Opportunity

Radicalization thrives in isolation.
The few examples of Palestinians who became moderate did so because they worked with Israelis, studied abroad, or built a life connected to something other than hate.

Integration programs, economic cooperation, and long-term human exposure can soften people,  but only when the ideological and educational poison stops being fed to them daily.

A Final Reality Check

You can communicate endlessly. You can offer facts, compassion, opportunities, and handshakes. But you cannot change the heart of someone who sees your death as sacred.

Only time, education, the dismantling of terror, and a generational cultural shift can make a radical society more moderate.

Until then, Israel will continue to speak the only language that is respected in such an environment: the language of survival.

Because survival is not extremism.
It is the most basic human right Israel has  and the one it must never apologize for.