Amid direct negotiations with Hamas, President Trump is giving what he calls a “last warning” to free the remaining hostages from October 7, 2023. The message echoes one from December telling the terrorist group that “there will be all hell to pay” for failing to free the captives by his inauguration on January 20.

“Shalom, Hamas,” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday. The Hebrew word means “hello” or “goodbye,” he said. “You can choose,” meaning the terrorists could take it as a greeting or wait for a final farewell.

“Release all of the Hostages now, not later,” Mr. Trump said, “and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you. Only sick and twisted people keep bodies, and you are sick and twisted!” 

“I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say.” He said he’d “just met with your former hostages whose lives you have destroyed.”

After 9/11, President George W. Bush said he wanted the perpetrator, Osama Bin Laden, “Dead or alive.” Mr. Trump invoked the same gunslinger spirit in his effort to bring the hostages home and Hamas to heel. “This,” he wrote, “is your last warning!”

Rather than limit his message to Hamas operatives, Mr. Trump addressed those in charge, as well. This removed the shield some in the organization have scripted by inventing a false distinction between “military,” “political,” and “media” wings. This president is not one for nuance.

“For the leadership,” Mr. Trump said, “now is the time to leave Gaza, while you still have a chance.” Top members of Hamas had been living in luxury at Qatar throughout the war. Only after Mr. Trump’s election did Doha eject them, making them easier targets.

Mr. Trump laid out the price terrorists would pay under his leadership in October 2023. “If you spill a drop of American blood,” he said at the Republican Jewish Coalition Conference, “we will spill a gallon of yours.”

Hamas and their puppet-masters in Tehran learned in Mr. Trump’s first term that his words have weight. He ordered the attack on the Iranian emissary to terrorist groups, General Qassem Soleimani, in 2020 — a blow from which Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance has failed to recover.

Mr. Trump’s post on Wednesday also aimed to undermine Hamas’s support among civilians. This is a well-timed strategy, suggests last week’s poll by the Institute for Social and Economic Progress. Just 5.3 percent of Gazans would vote for Hamas again; 70 percent say the group can’t govern.

“To the people of Gaza,” Mr. Trump wrote, “a beautiful future awaits, but not if you hold hostages!” This ultimatum echoed one from President Theodore Roosevelt, who stared down his own hostage-taker, Ahmed al-Raisuli, at Morocco.

Raisuli kidnapped a Greek-American, Ion Perdicaris, and his stepson, in 1904. As this columnist recounted for the Sun in December, Raisuli offered to return the hostages in exchange for concessions including a ransom equal to about $2.5 million today.

Instead, Roosevelt’s State Secretary, John Hay, cabled Morocco with an ultimatum from the president: “This government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” The hostages were released forthwith. Mr. Trump, in contrast to TR, was never a sheriff in the Badlands. Nor is Mr. Trump a Texan like Mr. Bush. Mr. Trump does favor their Old West style of justice.  

Mr. Trump concluded Wednesday’s message by indulging his affinity for the CapsLock key. “Make a SMART decision,” he wrote. “RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!”

Hamas, decimated by the war it provoked with Israel and losing support in Gaza, now faces the same choice Raisuli did a century ago. They can return the hostages and live or risk that Mr. Trump decides, as with Soleimani, that it’s time to attack.

_________

This column was updated to clarify the sender of the cable to Morocco in 1904 and the wording of the message.