The British biologist Richard Dawkins has, in the past decade, made himself an outspoken crusader for atheism. Andrew Brown notes something akin to blind religious devotion among his most dedicated followers, some of whom are willing to pay membership dues:

[T]he Richard Dawkins website offers followers the chance to join the “Reason Circle,” which, like Dante’s Hell, is itself arranged in concentric circles. For $85 a month, you get discounts on his merchandise, and the chance to meet “Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science personalities.” . . . After the neophyte passes through the successively more expensive “Darwin Circle” and then the “Evolution Circle,” he attains the innermost circle, where for $100,000 a year or more he gets to have a private breakfast or lunch with Richard Dawkins. . . . At this point, it is obvious to everyone except the participants that what we have here is a religion without the good bits. . . .

Like all scriptures, the Books of Dawkins contain numerous contradictions: in The God Delusion itself he moves within fifteen pages from condemning a pope who had baptized children taken away from Jewish parents to commending [the] suggestion that the children of creationists be taken away because teaching your children religion is comparable to child abuse.

In a sense, the most successful negotiation with Hamas was the recent agreement securing the release of Edan Alexander, the last living hostage with a U.S. passport. Unlike those previously handed over, he wasn’t exchanged for Palestinian prisoners, and there was no cease-fire. Dan Diker explains what Hamas got out of the deal:

Alexander’s unconditional release [was] designed to legitimize Hamas further as a viable negotiator and to keep Hamas in power, particularly at a moment when Israel is expanding its military campaign to conquer Gaza and eliminate Hamas as a military, political, and civil power. Israel has no other option than defeating Hamas. Hamas’s “humanitarian” move encourages American pressure on Israel to end its counterterrorism war in service of advancing additional U.S. efforts to release hostages over time, legitimizing Hamas while it rearms, resupplies, and reestablishes it military power and control.

In fact, Hamas-affiliated media have claimed credit for successful negotiations with the U.S., branding the release of Edan Alexander as the “Edan deal,” portraying Hamas as a rising international player, sidelining Israel from direct talks with DC, and declaring this a “new phase in the conflict.”

Fortunately, however, Washington has not coerced Jerusalem into ceasing the war since Alexander’s return. Nor, Diker observes, did the deal drive a wedge between the two allies, despite much speculation about the possibility.