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Bret Stephens

December 2024

Trump should present Iran with a choice – and a dare

The end of Bashar al-Assad’s wretched regime in Syria unlocks many doors for the United States across Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Iran.

Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth’s insurance unit, was fatally shot outside a Manhattan hotel.

The CEO, not the shooter, is the real working-class hero

Brian Thompson, who was fatally shot in New York, is a model for how a talented, determined man from humble roots can rise to the top of corporate life.

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Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden:It was always a good bet that the president would break his word as soon as it was politically safe to do so.

A disgraceful presidential pardon right out of the MAGA ‘swamp’

What a degrading finale for Joe Biden’s feeble, forgettable, frequently foolish presidency.

November 2024

Police escort Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters to the metro station before the Ajax game.

A worldwide ‘Jew hunt’ is under way

The instigators of last week’s attacks in Amsterdam are, like generations of pogromists before them, simply out to get the Jews.

Vice President Kamala Harris called Donald Trump on Thursday to concede victory.

The three big reasons behind Harris’ humiliating defeat

The politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms.

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Seven tips for the new US president, whoever wins

Whether it’s Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, these pieces of advice will serve either candidate equally well.

October 2024

Blame the politics of condescension, typified by Barack Obama.

Democrats’ name-calling will be to blame if Trump wins

The main reason will be the way in which leading liberal voices in government, academia and media practice politics today.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed last weekend.

Actually, the US absolutely does need to escalate in Iran

Iran presents an utterly intolerable threat not only to Israel but also to the United States and whatever remains of the liberal international order.

September 2024

Hezbollah fighters attend funerals for those killed in Israel’s airstrike in Beirut.

Why Hezbollah is everyone’s problem

The world is now in the opening stages of yet another contest between the free and unfree. It’s a conflict reaching far and wide, and will last for decades.

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The regime doesn’t merely make a habit of taking unlucky visitors hostage. It takes entire countries hostage, too, none more tragically than Lebanon.

The 5 things university students should be protesting about

Here are some alternative focal points for outrage and protest, particularly for morally energetic university students.

August 2024

 Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett.

All of Israel’s leaders need to be replaced, says former Israeli PM

After 10 months of grinding war, Israel has achieved none of its major objectives, says Naftali Bennett, who could be planning a return to the political stage.

July 2024

Vice president Kamala Harris speaks during the American Federation of Teachers’ national convention.

Democrats will pay a price for anointing Harris

Kamala Harris is unpopular, has a penchant for excruciating banality and her career smacks of connections and favouritism.

Protesters hold signs and flags during a demonstration calling for a hostages deal and against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.

What would a better Israeli prime minister do?

Israel needs to offer a postwar vision for Gaza and articulate the real stakes in this war – one battle in the struggle between the free and unfree worlds.

May 2024

Campus protests will not affect Israel.

Who’s in more trouble: Israel or Iran?

Middle East conflict is making Iran’s clerical regime seem ever more fragile, and Israel’s sense of nationhood even stronger.

What a ‘free Palestine’ means in practice

The campus protesters are not the first generation of Western activists who have championed movements that promised liberation in theory and misery and murder in practice.

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April 2024

Pro-Palestine supporters rally at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

What it means to be (visibly) Jewish in the Ivy League

Behaviour that would be scandalous if aimed at other minorities is treated as understandable or even commendable when directed at Jews.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Seventy-one per cent of Israelis want him booted from office.

Why Benjamin Netanyahu must go

Parliamentary democracies that find themselves saddled with bad leaders in moments of national emergency do well when they get rid of those leaders.

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February 2024

Settler colonialism: a guide for the sincere

It’s fine to oppose settler colonialism, but in that case, one also must be consistent and principled.

January 2024

A Hamas fighter inside one of the tunnels on the Gaza-Israeli border.

The real meaning of Gaza’s tunnels

Gaza is not an open air prison, but a vast fortress cynically created by Hamas. That is why the war is a catastrophe for those who have to live alongside it.

Israeli soldiers walk past houses destroyed by Hamas militants in Kibbutz Be’eri, Israel

The genocide charge against Israel is a moral obscenity

In war, the killing ends when one side stops fighting. In a genocide, that’s when the killing begins.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/by/bret-stephens-p4yvk7