A hostages rally in midtown Manhattan, Sept. 20, 2024. (Luke Tress)
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — When Donald Trump vowed that there would be “all hell to pay in the Middle East” if hostages are not freed by the time he takes office, what did he mean?
The president-elect’s statement, coming after the revelation that American-Israeli Omer Neutra was killed on Oct. 7, 2023, was long on fury and short on details.
“Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East — But it’s all talk, and no action!” Trump said in his statement posted on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns.
“Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity,” he said. “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!”
Trump’s statement could just be bluster, said observers, or it could be a sign of real intentions: to target a regional military figure, or sanction countries that harbor Hamas officials, or create the conditions for Israel’s far-right politicians to accept a ceasefire deal. The president-elect could also be positioning himself to claim credit if a ceasefire is reached before his inauguration, some suggested. The unlikeliest scenario is that he would put American soldiers’ lives at risk in the battle against Hamas.
The immediate assumption among Israelis and American Jews who are in Trump’s orbit is that he was referring to the 101 hostages still held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, though Trump did not specify further and a spokesman did not respond to a request for clarification.
“I want to thank President Trump for his strong statement yesterday about the need for Hamas to release the hostages, the responsibility of Hamas, and this adds another force to our continued effort to release all the hostages,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
But if Trump is referring to the Hamas-held hostages, what means could he use to pressure Hamas that haven’t already been exercised?
And most saliently, does his threat to hit the perpetrators “harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America” mean that the United States will attack Hamas directly?
According to analysts across the political spectrum, the answer to that second question is no.
“The concept of Americans coming back in body bags serving in the Middle East is not popular with Americans, not just with Trump,” said Shira Efron, the senior director of policy research at the Israel Policy Forum.
In the end, Efron said, Trump has a penchant for inflammatory rhetoric — and an aversion to war: In 2017, he threatened “fire and fury like the world has never seen” on North Korea for testing a nuclear warhead-carrying missile. Before long, they were meeting in Singapore.
“I just feel like these statements, I don’t know what he’s going to be — he could be much more experienced than last time and not make statements in vain, but I don’t know,” she said. “We have precedents to show that there are statements that are followed by different steps.”
What would those steps be? Israel, with American funding and weapons, has already been relentless in its pursuit of Hamas, killing much of its leadership, driving the rest into retreat and destroying much of the Gaza Strip’s infrastructure.
Trump ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian commander, in 2020. But this time, it’s not exactly clear which individuals he could target. Hamas has not named a leader since Israeli troops felled the architect of Oct. 7, Yahya Sinwar, in September.
The “hell” that Trump is threatening could be more applicable to Hamas’ enablers in the region, said Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank that favors a more confrontational posture toward Israel’s enemies than the Biden administration has demonstrated. He suggested that Trump’s threats referred to non-military tactics.
“Saying ‘all hell’ may have been an exaggeration, but we have not imposed sanctions on the Turks believed to be harboring and financing Hamas,” Schanzer said in an interview. “We have not put full pressure on Qatar,” whose humanitarian aid bankrolled the Hamas regime, until recently. Qatar last month pledged to eject Hamas leaders from its territory, though it is not yet clear if that has happened.
Schanzer recommended threats to draw down major U.S. military presences in both countries. “The Turks have been supporting Hamas, and yet we maintain very sensitive weapons and personnel in Incirlik,” he said, referring to the U.S. airbase in Turkey, which is a member of the NATO transatlantic alliance.
EJ Kimball, an expert on counterterrorism at the U.S.-Israel Education Association, also called for pressure on Hamas’ enablers, although he acknowledged that it could be complicated by the complex relations the United States has with some of the countries, particularly Turkey.
“Turkey is a much bigger challenge, especially the NATO factor,” he said. “However, there are messages that can be passed along to Turkish leadership to understand the role that they need to play.”
One message, Kimball said, is that nations like Turkey and Qatar should not only expel and cut off funds to Hamas officials; they should extradite them to the United States.
Extradition to the United States is also one of a number of recommendations Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser to FDD, put together in late August. Another is to make clear to countries including Turkey and Qatar that the United States will not stand in the way of Israeli attempts to eliminate the Hamas officials wherever they are.
“The United States should also make clear to all countries that it supports Israeli efforts to kill or capture Hamas officials wherever they reside,” Goldberg, a staffer on Trump’s first term national security council, wrote in August.
That contrasts with the Biden administration’s uneasiness with Israel’s presumed assassination in July of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader, in Tehran. Biden officials feared the killing on Iranian soil would lead Iran to escalate its conflict with Israel, which proved to be the case.
But if Trump does turn the screws on countries that house Hamas leadership, Efron said it was not at all clear that the terror group would change course and release the hostages. Israel has decimated Hamas, she said, and Netanyahu has steadfastly resisted the group’s demands for a ceasefire: the release of Palestinians held prisoner in Israel, and a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
“The question is, really, will Hamas care at this point?” Efron said.
David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Trump’s threat could be part of a joint ploy with the Biden administration to push Hamas toward a deal. In this scenario, Trump is playing bad cop opposite Biden’s good cop.
“We are hearing about how the transition teams, when it comes to foreign policy on both sides, are actually showing signs of working together, unlike after the last two rounds of U.S. elections,” said Makovsky, whose think tank has sources deep in the U.S. and Israeli governments.
Efron, whose group supports a two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, noted there were some positive signals a deal is pending, among them Hamas’ isolation after its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, last week agreed to a ceasefire with Israel.
She said Trump may sense that a hostage deal is pending and may be putting out “bombastic” statements to take credit when it happens.
“Trump may be thinking, like, ‘there’s all this chatter. I’ll issue a statement, and if something happens, I can also take credit for it,’” she said.
Or, she suggested, the statement may be a means of pressuring far-right elements in Netanyahu’s cabinet, who have resisted any end to the war in Gaza, and who are hoping to reestablish Jewish settlements in the enclave.
Not only that, she said, Netanyahu may have solicited the statement for that purpose: She noted that Trump issued the statement after meeting with Netanyahu’s closest adviser, Ron Dermer.
“Trump, because he’s seen here [in Israel] as so pro-Israel, it‘s very difficult … to say no to this guy,” she said. If Trump pushes for a hostage deal, Efron said, “Netanyahu can go to Smotrich and say ‘What do you want? We can’t say no to him. He’s not Biden.’” She referred to the hard right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich. “Trump has leverage, here at least,” she said, referring to Israel.
Either way, Schanzer hopes Trump’s rhetorical shift will be enough to move the region to squeeze Hamas into a deal.
“Trump is changing the tone of the conversation,” he said. “But the conversation should have been changed a while ago.
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