Scholar: 'Islamic Thought Revolution' Needed for Mideast Peace

JERUSALEM, Israel – President Trump may have all the good intentions in the world for making a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, but it won't happen unless there's a revolution in Islamic thought, a leading Middle East scholar said.

Following his meeting in Bethlehem with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Trump said, "I can tell you that the Palestinians are ready to reach for peace."

Earlier, on the first leg of his world religion tour, Trump told Islamic leaders that if Judaism, Christianity and Islam join together "peace in this world is possible -- including peace between Israelis and Palestinians."

But Harold Rhode, a leading Middle East expert, said it's not so simple. Rhode lived and studied at universities in the Islamic world for years and spent nearly three decades advising the U.S. Defense Department on Islamic Affairs.

Rhode said Trump and his advisors need to ask why the peace process sounds like a broken record.

"All these people believe that they're going to be the one to solve it and if you read President Trump's 'The Art of the Deal,' [it] explains how he thinks," Rhode told CBN News.

"He's a great deal maker. He's not an expert on Islam. It's not his job to be an expert on Islam," Rhode said. "Only after there's a Muslim thought revolution is it possible."

Rhode said Abbas isn't respected in Palestinian society. "They look down on him. They by and large despise him," he said.

Rhode points to former PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat's reaction to the deal offered to him by then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David in 2000.  

"Barak offers Yasser Arafat absolutely everything in the West Bank and as it came [to] the Temple Mount – which we know in the Bible there were two Jewish Temples there – Barak said, 'you get the top of the Temple Mount where your mosques, your holy places are, we get below because those are the archaeological remnants, but it's in return for a peace agreement,'" Rhode said.

"Arafat, who could do things much more in the name of the people here than Mahmoud Abbas, jumps up, starts to shake and said, 'there never was a Jewish Temple here!'" he explained.

Rhode referred to a pamphlet by the Muslim Wafk (Islamic trust), which oversees the al-Aksa Mosque and Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, written in the 1920s. It stated that there's no doubt Solomon's Temple was on the Temple Mount.

Rhode also said while the Palestinians may be willing at some point to recognize the country of Israel, they won't recognize it as a Jewish state because that would contradict their religion.

"If they recognize it as a Jewish state, they're denying the basic Muslim idea that once land is conquered by Muslims, it's Muslim forever," he said. "That is a huge violation of Islam. It's a violation of your personal honor, they say. It's apostasy and punishable by death."