General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently praised Israel’s extraordinary efforts to prevent civilian casualties in Gaza and mentioned that the Pentagon sent a team to Israel to learn from the IDF’s policies. Yet the U.S. State Department is standing by its critique of Israel for not doing enough on this score. David Bernstein writes:

Incredibly, when asked about Dempsey’s statement, State Department spokesperson Jan Psaki asserts “it remains the broad view of the entire administration that [Israel] could have done more and they should have taken more—all feasible precautions to prevent civilian casualties.” First, Dempsey is an Obama appointee, so the idea that the “entire administration” agrees with this is nonsense. Second, we have the informed judgment of America’s top military commander against State Department civilians who don’t even bother to wait until the facts are established before condemning Israel, plus Benjamin Rhodes, whose only claim to military knowledge is that he’s been serving as President Obama’s mouthpiece on foreign-policy matters since 2007 . . .

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.