This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.
Donald Trump has practiced the “art of the deal” for decades.
The question is: Will his ambition to achieve a transformative Middle East peace agreement cause him to violate one of the most important principles of any constructive negotiation: You must be willing to walk away when one of the parties is acting in bad faith even before the deal is done.
That’s exactly what Hamas is doing. Presented with the President’s take-it-or-leave it ultimatum, Hamas accepted conditionally.
President Trump pledged that Israel would have his support to finish the job in Gaza if Hamas didn’t fully accept the deal. Instead, the jihadists have pulled a bait-and-switch.
If allowed to get away with it, they’ll only behave worse in a negotiating process that was not supposed to happen, but that’s now nonetheless underway in Egypt.
This is Frank Gaffney.
Trump must know this. The goal is to get the hostages back. Until that happens, nothing else can. Hamas knows that they are toast once they give back the hostages, so my guess is that they will delay forever if they can. Trump set a deadline. He must keep it. The Gazan citizens deserve to be liberated and Hamas deserves to disappear. You just have to trust Trump on this, I guess. But no hostages, no laundry. They are the ticket to anything else but physical annihilation. I am betting that they do not want their 40 virgins quite yet (though I cannot think of a more torturous punishment than this). They are playing the game with no advantages going for them. It cannot end well for them.
What about the bait and switch that Israel has done? They make agreements one moment and then violate them the next. They are genociding the people of Gaza using American weapons and money. This isn't right and needs to stop.