AFTER AL-SHIFA

Secret talks between Hamas, Israel, and the US continue as the war in Gaza drags on

A view from the southern Israeli city of Sderot of the sun setting over the Gaza Strip on November 17. / Photo by Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images.

In 1991 I published a book, The Samson Option, about Israel’s then little-known and still officially unacknowledged nuclear arsenal. Israel did have the bomb, lots of bombs, but the real secret the book revealed was the extent to which three American presidents—Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson—had helped the Israelis produce, deploy, and lie about them.

No one likes to be the bearer of bad news, but I remain mystified by the ongoing inability of the Biden administration and the Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to tell the truth about what may or may not be grim news.