Mark Penn
Hamas has rightly been put on notice to deliver the remainder of the hostages. Even the Iranian regime eventually released all its hostages in 1980 after 444 days. This has now lasted 493 days. Hamas has leveraged their hostage taking to the limit and many of its leaders paid the ultimate price for this strategy. Those in Hamas captivity are primarily ordinary citizens, many just at a concert, and all are guilty of nothing other than being in Israel at the moment terrorists struck. In exchange Hamas has already gotten nearly 200 convicted terrorists. It’s good to see a president drawing a clear red line on the release of the hostages rather than victim blaming; it’s time Hamas released them all without further conditions.