At its 2015 annual conference, the American Historical Association (AHA) discussed, and eventually rejected, a boycott-Israel resolution similar to those circulating among other academic organizations. Jeffrey Herf, a prominent historian of the Holocaust, explains how his colleagues were dissuaded:

The AHA [was] faced with deciding between the account of [last summer’s Gaza war] offered by Israel, a liberal democracy with a thriving political opposition and free press, compared to accounts offered by Hamas, a terrorist organization which suppressed all opposition, intimidated the press and media, and whose charter repeats the falsehoods of classic Jew-hatred. . . . AHA members could not as historians render judgments about [the war]. Why would the AHA give the benefit of the doubt to Hamas rather than to Israel? If the AHA had adopted the [boycott] resolutions, the name of the American Historical Association would be associated in public with the version of events associated with Hamas, an organization justly famous for terrorism and anti-Semitism and which did not permit academic freedom to thrive under its rule.

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.