Amid Israel’s celebration at receiving back the last living hostages, few commentators have chosen to dwell on the dark exchange that made that possible. Namely, in return for Hamas freeing the last 20 hostages, Israel also freed nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 250 convicted terrorists, most of whom were serving life sentences in Israeli prisons. Many of these prisoners, for whose release Hamas negotiated, were released not into Gaza but into Judea and Samaria — to Ramallah, the administrative center of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

This last, suggestive fact shows a partnership of sorts between Hamas and the PA, who may be rivals to Palestinian leadership but who share the goal of Israel’s destruction. The detailed peace plan ratified by the U.S., Israel, and numerous Arab nations overlooks this fact, pretending that the PA may one day form a legitimate, peaceful replacement in Gaza to Hamas’s regime of terror.

Thus, the Gaza peace negotiations provide the latest installment in a long series of illustrations proving the maxim — variously attributed to figures from Yogi Berra to Albert Einstein to 19th century American industrialist Benjamin Brewster — “in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, while in practice there is.”

According to the theory of Western diplomats, Hamas and the PA have little in common. Hamas is a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, which has ruled Gaza since 2006 and commits atrocities against both its enemies and its own subjects. The PA, which has often quarreled with Hamas, administers certain Palestinian enclaves in Judea and Samaria, areas geographically distant from the Gaza Strip. In contrast with Hamas, the PA is not openly at war with Israel.

In practice, however, the commonalities between the PA and Hamas are far more important than their differences. Both are ideologically committed to expelling Israel from the land promised to Abraham, as the PA has demonstrated by repeatedly turning down Israel’s offers of land-for-peace. Both endorse terrorism for this end, with Hamas openly committing acts of terrorism itself, while the PA prefers to merely subsidize acts of terrorism through its “pay-to-slay” pension system. Whatever the well-meaning liberals theorize, Hamas and the PA are united in their animosity toward Israel.

“We’re told that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are not connected, but it appears this deal does connect them,” summarized FRC President Tony Perkins. No other solution can explain the fact that, in exchange for hostages it captured on October 7, Hamas negotiated for the release of prisoners unaffiliated with its terrorist outfit.

To be exact, Israel released 1,968 Palestinian prisoners. The majority (1,718) were Gazan detainees captured in the most recent war. But 250 were security prisoners convicted of deadly attacks, some of whom had been in prison for decades. Of this number, 88 were sent to East Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, areas outside Hamas’s domain, and these prisoners arrived in Ramallah to “raucous celebration.” Israel deported another 154 prisoners to Egypt, perhaps to deny their terrorist talent to Hamas (leaving a remainder of eight).

This pattern is not new. At every prisoner exchange throughout the war, Israel released a disproportionate number of prisoners for every hostage Hamas returned, and some of the prisoners went to Ramallah, others to Gaza. “Israel does this every time there’s a prisoner exchange,” allowed Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) on “Washington Watch.” “Of course” it connects Hamas and the PA, if Hamas negotiates for prisoners “released into Judea and Samaria.”

Self also noted another contrast between theory and practice, which is that, “when one terrorist group is taken down, they morph.” That is, for Western theoreticians, it is easiest to conceive of terror groups as distinct organizations with semi-static structures and membership. In practice, however, non-state terrorist groups often use disorganization as a tactical advantage, making them harder to track, sanction, or blockade. To terrorists, committing terrorism matters more than any niceties about organizational structure.

Thus, in the power vacuum created by Israel’s partial withdrawal from Gaza, Self predicted either Hamas or some similar terror group will likely try to assert control, as Hamas is already doing. “Hamas will morph into something else if it’s not Hamas,” he said. “How do you change decades of training your children to hate Jews, to hate Israel, to say that Israel has no right to exist? How do you change that with one day, with one piece of paper?”

Such a change is only theoretical. Changing the practical realities on the ground “will take time,” Self said. “I have to be optimistic. But as a military planner, for decades, I must look at it realistically and say that Hamas will do everything it can to cheat.”

The same logic applies equally to the PA, who also indoctrinates its population against Israel. This is why even Trump’s 20-point peace plan, while still leaving room for the PA to eventually play a leadership role, could not entrust such a role to the PA as it currently exists, without transformational reforms.

Indeed, Self warned that the release of prisoners into Judea and Samaria could lead to further terrorism in that region. “You think these people care what’s on that piece of paper?” he asked. “Absolutely not. They will go back [to old habits], to include strapping bombs on themselves.”

In Self’s estimation, one success of Trump’s peace plan was that it got other Arab nations to agree — contra France, the U.K., and Australia — that the PA is currently in no condition to govern a second nation that would coexist peacefully with Israel. This means that, “now, the other Middle Eastern countries have a responsibility to make sure that the negotiations and the treaty that they have signed will be implemented on the ground,” he explained.

Somehow, within its 20 points, Trump’s peace plan seems to accommodate both theory and practice — incompatible though they may be. Those who are ideologically committed to a two-state solution can find something to solace their disappointed hopes, while those committed to eliminate Hamas gather strength from the deal’s opening sentences. Yet the deal also acknowledges the reality that a two-state solution remains a distant, theoretical possibility, while no one has yet proposed a solution that will make Hamas magically disappear from Gaza.

Yet Israel’s follow-up prisoner swap with Hamas notes one aspect of the peace plan that indulges theory at the expense of practice. In the theory of the peace deal, Hamas and the PA are distinct entities. In practice, their inclinations and objectives seem to overlap to an uncanny — and uncomfortable — degree.