For a brief period, Westerners who cling to a psychological investment in Israel’s perfidy tried to convince themselves, if not everyone else, that the captives Hamas seized during the 10/7 massacre had it pretty good.
Within a week of the attack, Hamas operatives conveyed to Western sources their deep regret over the non-Israelis in their custody, many of whom they claimed were being treated as honored “guests.” “I think that changes the story,” NBC News reporter Richard Engel observed. Shortly after some of the hostages were separated from their families and returned to Israeli custody, those former captives dutifully related tales of Hamas’s hospitality (lest something happen to their loved ones). Social media erupted in an orgy of naïveté after the first round of hostages were released. The outpouring of gullibility was so profound that professional journalistic enterprises lowered themselves to the task of fact-checking popular posts alleging that the hostages “look like people finishing a vacation and saying goodbye to the resort staff.”
Comments