Time and again since the current war began, Western media have engaged in obfuscations, unfounded accusations, and absurd framings in their reporting. Robert Satloff carefully dissects one egregious, and especially insidious, example: a November 17 story in the Washington Post under the headline “Israel’s War with Hamas Separates Palestinian Babies from Their Mothers.” The purported horror this article seeks to expose is that Israeli hospitals are caring for ailing Gazan infants:

“Tragedy” is a much-used term in a conflict that began with Hamas’s murder and kidnapping of Israeli babies—a fact interestingly not mentioned in a story about babies and this war—but no one dies in this story; these Palestinian babies are all safe and protected. Indeed, the journalists could have written a wholly different story—“Despite war, Gazan babies safe and protected in Israeli and West Bank hospitals”—but they opted to focus on the alleged distress of the mothers instead of the well-being of the babies.

I say “alleged” because in this lengthy story, only one mother was quoted by full name and she was reached by phone in Gaza. Indeed, it’s not clear whether any of the journalists reported from Gaza. (The story was datelined Nablus, with one reporter in London.)

And then there is the uncomfortable fact that some of these babies are being cared for in Israel—yet the whole story rests on the inhumanity of Israel’s alleged policy of denying re-entry permits to some mothers, preventing them from reuniting with their children, but the reporters do not appear even to have sought comment from Israeli officials.

Strange story indeed—in a war filled with death, the Washington Post took a fundamentally good-news story about premature babies from Gaza cared for by compassionate people across enemy lines and turned it into a horror story, with diabolical Israelis lurking overhead.

Tamir Hayman analyzes the latest reports about an offer by Hamas to release three female soldiers in exchange for 150 captured terrorists, of whom 90 have received life sentences; then, if that exchange happens successfully, a second stage of the deal will begin.

If this does happen, Israel will release all the serious prisoners who had been sentenced to life and who are associated with Hamas, which will leave Israel without any bargaining chips for the second stage. In practice, Israel will release everyone who is important to Hamas without getting back all the hostages. In this situation, it’s evident that Israel will approach the second stage of the negotiations in the most unfavorable way possible. Hamas will achieve all its demands in the first stage, except for a commitment from Israel to end the war completely.

How does this relate to the fighting in Rafah? Hayman explains:

In the absence of an agreement or compromise by Hamas, it is detrimental for Israel to continue the static situation we were in. It is positive that new energy has entered the campaign. . . . The [capture of the] border of the Gaza Strip and the Rafah crossing are extremely important achievements, while the ongoing dismantling of the battalions is of secondary importance.

That being said, Hayman is critical of the approach to negotiations taken so far:

Gradual hostage trades don’t work. We must adopt a different concept of a single deal in which Israel offers a complete cessation of the war in exchange for all the hostages.