Donald Trump’s going to bring peace to the Middle East even if he has to kill everybody over there to make it happen.

That was more or less The White House’s message to the region on Friday when, in-between posting shutdown memes (one of which described Democrats as “the party of hate, evil and Satan,” while another was an AI-generated video of himself and JD Vance performing the Blue Oyster Cult’s only hit song while Russ Vought paraded around Washington dressed as the Grim Reaper), Trump gave Hamas a Sunday deadline to accept his ceasefire proposal.

Trump cooked up the 20-point plan with input from a visiting Benjamin Netanyahu who, somewhat amusingly, was compelled by Trump to apologize to Qatar for bombing Doha last month. Trump subsequently declared that any attack on Qatar would be considered an attack on the US, which I suppose means that if Israel targets Hamas’s leadership in Doha again, America might have to declare war on… Israel? Who knows. Not Trump, that’s for sure. All we know is that gifting Trump a luxury-fitted jumbo jet gets you an ironclad US security guarantee.

Anyway, I’m going to keep this simple: Hamas needs to accept the plan, because if not, it sounds like Trump’s going to let Israel simply clean out northern Gaza altogether. The IDF’s already in the process of commandeering Gaza City and everything north of it, and as macabre as the situation already is two years on from the October 7 attacks, I don’t want to see what comes next in the event Netanyahu gets America’s “full backing to finish the job,” as Trump put it earlier this week.

Trump issues a lot of ultimatums, not all of which are actually ultimatums. On that score, at least, Trump actually is a good dealmaker. Part of negotiating with recalcitrant parties entails the use of fake ultimatums and in a lot of cases, threats of physical violence. Occasionally, you follow through. You might, for example, incinerate the most dangerous man on the planet at the risk of staring a third world war, as Trump did in January of 2020. Or you might, say, blow up a mountain nuclear facility, like Trump did earlier this year.

More times than not, though, you’re bluffing. Because there’s always a chance the other side won’t blink, especially if they aren’t rational. If nobody ever blinks and all your violent ultimatums are real, well then you’re not a negotiator anymore, you’re just a ruthless butcher. Or you’re Benjamin Netanyahu. (That’s a distinction without a difference.)

With that in mind, I don’t think Trump was bluffing on Friday when he said the following to Hamas:

As retribution for the October 7th attack on civilization, more than 25,000 Hamas “soldiers” have already been killed. Most of the rest are surrounded and MILITARILY TRAPPED, just waiting for me to give the word, “GO,” for their lives to be quickly extinguished. As for the rest, we know where and who you are, and you will be hunted down, and killed. Fortunately for Hamas, however, they will be given one last chance! Great, powerful, and very rich Nations of the Middle East, and the surrounding areas beyond, together with the United States of America, have agreed, with Israel signing on, to PEACE, after 3000 years, in the Middle East. THIS DEAL ALSO SPARES THE LIVES OF ALL REMAINING HAMAS FIGHTERS! The details of the document are known to the WORLD, and it is a great one for ALL! RELEASES THE HOSTAGES, ALL OF THEM, INCLUDING THE BODIES OF THOSE THAT ARE DEAD, NOW! An Agreement must be reached with Hamas by Sunday Evening at SIX (6) P.M., Washington, D.C. time. Every Country has signed on! If this LAST CHANCE agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas.

That’s not an idle threat. Really it isn’t. And the IDF’s ready, willing and, importantly, in position having spent the last several weeks cutting off northern Gaza from the south of the enclave, to make good on Trump’s menacing.

Simply put: If Hamas doesn’t accept the 20-point plan by Sunday evening, Israel’s going to kill everyone north of the Netzarim Corridor, including all the civilians. On Wednesday, Israel Katz suggested anyone who doesn’t evacuate south could be considered “terrorists and terrorism supporters.”

So, again, this is a real “take it or leave it” from Trump to Hamas, and it’s well past time the leadership in Doha convinces whatever’s left of the Gaza gopher crowd to give it up. Yahya Sinwar’s been dead for nearly a year now. The ideology isn’t going to die (ever), but a lot more people surely are if the politburo in Qatar doesn’t force the remnants of Mohammed Deif‘s Qassam Brigades to throw in the towel.

Sinwar would surely insist on fighting until the end, or at least until Israel agrees to free every, single last jailed Palestinian which, I’d gently note, is under-appreciated as a motivating factor for the October 7 attacks. I realize this isn’t the consensus view, and I don’t agree with it myself, but it’s at least possible that Sinwar’s only goal was to compel a massive prisoner exchange — that everything which happened that fateful day outside of the kidnappings wasn’t actually part of his plan.

Think about it: Sinwar was no idiot. What’s more likely? That he believed he could “liberate Palestine” by triggering an all-out war between Israel and Iran’s Axis of Resistance, a war he knew Iran had no hope of winning? Or that Sinwar promised all his jail buddies that if he ever got out, he’d find a way to free them? That’s what everyone tells their jail buddies, after all, and unlike most jail buddies, Sinwar was a man of principle. Evil, murderous principle, sure, but principle all the same. (“Say what you will about the tenets of national socialism but at least it’s an ethos.”)

Anyway, expect Hamas to agree to Trump’s deal. If they don’t, expect a massacre in Gaza City. As Trump put it Friday, “THERE WILL BE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.”