In a wide-ranging press conference conducted on January 7, 2025 at his Mar-a-Lago resort, President-elect Trump said “all hell will break out in the Middle East” if the Israeli and American hostages taken by Hamas are not returned by the time of Inauguration Day.
“If they're not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East, and it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone.” Trump said. “All hell will break out. I don't have to say anymore, but that's what it is. And they should have given them back a long time. They should have never taken [them].”
President Trump even went so far as to appoint Steve Witkoff as “special envoy” to the Middle East to emphasize his interest and commitment to getting the hostages, especially the Americans, back.
At the time, come Inauguration Day it was assumed that “Hell” would be rained down on Hamas and their allies, but it looks more like the party most spooked by Trump’s all too real threat was not Hamas but the departing Biden administration, which put unrelenting pressure on Israel to do a deal – any deal – with the vicious jihadi rulers of Gaza while they could still take credit for it.
The result, with Mr. Witkoff’s active participation, was anything but the victory over Hamas that President Trump and his national security team, such as Pete Hegseth, led us to believe they favored.
Far from being a “peace” agreement, or agreement to release all hostages, the “deal” announced yesterday was a prisoner swap in which Hamas got back many of its detained terrorist operatives and 23 living hostages out of the more or less 100 still unaccounted for are to be released sometime between now and March – not immediately. And the timetable for the release of the remaining living Americans remains unclear.
What’s the bottom line here?
Twenty-three deeply traumatized hostages will be released, but the agreement does not require Hamas to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist or legitimacy as the homeland of the Jewish people, it does not provide any guarantee that Hamas renounces violence, or rape or kidnapping – all this “peace deal” really does is allow Hamas to survive to fight another day.
President Trump is certainly to be commended for engaging so forcefully on the world stage before his second term even begins, but the results are far short of the victory that many observers had hoped for and many Trump supporters seem to believe has been achieved.
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