President Trump has put real pressure on Hamas with a hard deadline for accepting his Gaza peace framework, making clear this administration will not endlessly tolerate bloodshed while our allies and hostages suffer. The president’s public ultimatum signals a different kind of American leadership — one that demands results rather than endless talk.
Hamas’s public response has been maddeningly ambiguous: officials have signaled conditional openness while insisting the war must end and Israeli forces must withdraw — language that stops short of a clean, verifiable acceptance. That coyness is exactly what we’ve seen from these terrorists for decades: negotiate in public, bargain in private, and keep the hostages as leverage.
On her show, Greta Van Susteren captured the right instinct when she warned that a “positive response” from Hamas is not the same as a surrender of arms or a genuine commitment to peace; it’s prudent to treat this as smoke, not fire. Conservatives who want peace must also demand proof — signatures, immediate releases, and verifiable disarmament — not press statements that could be spun by terror propagandists.
America and Israel cannot be naive. Reporting from multiple outlets makes clear Hamas has a long record of stringing along mediators while continuing to wage war, and we must not let the region be held hostage to empty rhetoric. The safety of Israeli citizens and the return of hostages are non-negotiable; any deal that leaves Hamas intact is a promise of more carnage down the road.
That said, President Trump deserves credit for forcing the issue and rallying regional players to push Hamas to a decision, showing leadership where the previous administration flailed. If Hamas rejects a real, enforceable deal, America and Israel should be unified in backing decisive action to remove the scourge of terrorism from Gaza and secure a lasting peace for Israelis and peaceful Palestinians alike.
