In both the Israeli and Western media, “settlers”—i.e., Jewish residents of the West Bank—are often depicted as politically and religiously homogeneous and generally assumed to be fanatics. As Akiva Bigman explains, however, settlers are split nearly evenly among ultra-Orthodox, religious-Zionist, and secular camps:

No one doubts that religious Zionists played a large part in the settlement movement and that they are worthy of great praise for this. But we need to keep the bigger picture in mind and fit the image to the facts and not the other way around. As a truly national project, various populations took part in the settlement movement, and most of those who live in Judea and Samaria live in settlements and towns established on government initiative or at least outside the settlements [founded by the Gush Emunim movement].

Religious Zionist leaders . . . understood reality, realizing that the settlement project must be a national, not a sectorial affair. They didn’t say that secular Jews wouldn’t come. Instead, they built settlements open to all—and they came, so much so that religious Zionists are a minority across the Green Line. The story of settlement in Judea and Samaria is one of a national, joint effort of religious Zionists, secular right-wingers, and many ḥaredi Jews besides. But something happened along the way. The focus on narrow sectorial interests turned a national project into one identified solely with one sector. This is a historical error of the first magnitude, a misrepresentation of the facts and a political blunder.

Robert Satloff has some harsh words for the U.S. government in this regard, words I take especially seriously because Satloff is someone inclined to political moderation. Why, he asks, have American diplomats failed to achieve anything in their endless rounds of talks in Doha and Cairo? Because

there is simply not enough pressure on Hamas to change course, accept a deal, and release the remaining October 7 hostages, stuck in nightmarish captivity. . . . In this environment, why should Hamas change course?

Publicly, the U.S. should bite the bullet and urge Israel to complete the main battle operations in Gaza—i.e., the Rafah operation—as swiftly and efficiently as possible. We should be assertively assisting with the humanitarian side of this.

Satloff had more to say about the hostages, especially the five American ones, in a speech he gave recently:

I am ashamed—ashamed of how we have allowed the story of the hostages to get lost in the noise of the war that followed their capture; ashamed of how we have permitted their release to be a bargaining chip in some larger political negotiation; ashamed of how we have failed to give them the respect and dignity and our wholehearted demand for Red Cross access and care and medicine that is our normal, usual demand for hostages.

If they were taken by Boko Haram, everyone would know their name. If they were taken by the Taliban, everyone would tie a yellow ribbon around a tree for them. If they were taken by Islamic State, kids would learn about them in school.

It is repugnant to see their freedom as just one item on the bargaining table with Hamas, as though they were chattel. These are Americans—and they deserve to be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.