Trump vs. Hamas

News broke yesterday that Omer Neutra, an American citizen, believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas during the October 7th attack, is in fact dead. Neutra was murdered that day by Hamas terrorists, who dragged his dead body into Gaza.

Furious, Donald Trump issued a strong warning to Hamas and its supporters. He demanded that all the hostages, including Americans, kidnapped by Hamas had better be released by January 20th, when he is inaugurated. If not, Trump vowed:

“… there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

It reminded me of how Ronald Reagan scared the mullahs of Iran so much that they released dozens of American hostages immediately after Reagan’s 1980 inauguration.

Trump’s warning wasn’t just bravado. Nor was it just to Hamas. He said the Middle East will pay a price. That was a direct message to the sponsors and supporters of terrorism, like Iran, to lean on Hamas to release hostages. We’ll see what happens.

We know this for certain: Coming from Donald Trump, that is a credible threat. No one has been intimidated by Joe Biden the last four years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s warning as a “forceful statement,” adding, “President Trump put the emphasis in the correct place, on Hamas, and not on the Israeli government, as is customary in some places.” (That is a reference to the Biden White House.)