Hamas cease-fire betrayal reveals hard questions facing the good guys

As Hamas makes clear it has no intention of honoring its cease-fire agreement with Israel, a number of hard questions have arisen for America, Israel, their political leadership and their allies in the region. First, kudos are due to President Trump — meeting Tuesday with King Abdullah — for signaling his unwavering support for Israel: “If all the Gaza hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 p.m., I would say cancel the cease-fire.Let all hell break out; Israel can override it.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now echoed the remarks, saying Israel will indeed resume hostilities if the remaining hostages due out under the deal’s first phase aren’t released Saturday.  All this came after Hamas announced it would stop hostage releases because Israel had supposedly somehow broken the cease-fire terms. With his strong words, Trump is again taking the opposite of the Biden approach of undermining the Jewish state. But what role should Trump play here?The clearest possible path is to exert pressure on Egypt and Jordan to assent to his Palestinian refugee plan and to push the Saudis on a normalization deal. The question is vastly harder for Israel and Netanyahu. The nation is war-weary and desperate for the return of hostages; Netanyahu faces domestic political problems as well.  Get the most important developments in the region, globally and locally.

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Never miss a story.Is another sustained military campaign even possible under those circumstances, no matter how necessary?The ugliest question of all: Whence Hamas’ own bad-faith break with the deal? Given that the terror masters of Gaza get dozens of their paid killers back for every hostage freed, there’s no seeming reason for Hamas to hesitate. Except that, as the most recent release revealed, its mo...