One can pinpoint the moment the administration started singing a different tune behind closed doors. Before Israel’s incursion into Gaza in late October, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was meeting with the emir of Qatar, Hamas’s feckless and reckless patron. The emir told Blinken that Hamas was practically desperate to give back some of the hostages it had taken because the kidnappings had been too successful and Hamas couldn’t manage all of them. (Later we are told Hamasniks wanted to at least give back the babies so they didn’t have to change diapers, a reminder of the limitless, demonic evil of the men whose word the Qatari emir was taking at face value.)

Now, one might interject right here and say plainly: No one was forcing Hamas to hold any hostages. But Foer’s sources ignore that fact and suggest that Hamas got stuck with the hostages because Israel wouldn’t take them. Foer inexplicably and repulsively repeats this libel as if it could possibly be true—as if the Israelis were the monsters in this scenario. ...

The idea that “the Americans worried about hostages dying in captivity” but the Israelis didn’t is a monstrous, despicable, evil lie—and contemporaneous reporting proves the Americans knew it was a lie ten months ago. Yet here it is, presented to readers as if a revelation.