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Bret Stephens

Yesterday

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

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.

  • Updated
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

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

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.

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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

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.

April

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.

  • Updated
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.

  • Updated

February

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

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.

The case for Trump – by someone who wants him to lose

You can’t defeat a political opponent if you refuse to understand what makes him formidable. Trump got three big things right — or at least more right than wrong.

December 2023

Antisemitism: A guide for the perplexed

It isn’t just Jews in the cross-hairs of antisemites. It’s freedom, education and human dignity.

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University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill listens during a hearing of the House committee on education on Capitol Hill, Tuesday.

Campus antisemitism, free speech and double standards

Colleges have discovered the virtues of free speech only now, when the speech in question hurts Jews.

November 2023

Palestinian supporters gathered outside the Opera House on October 9 after it was lit up in Israeli colours following the Hamas attack.

The left is killing the prospects of a Palestinian state

Westerners who refuse to question Hamas’ theocratic despotism make a peaceful solution harder to achieve.

October 2023

Einav Moshebarda, the niece of Adina, who was kidnapped by Hamas militants during their attack last week, hugs a woman at a protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday. The brutality of the Hamas attack has shocked Israel and the world.

Hamas is the sole cause of Gaza’s misery

The world should not reward Hamas with our credulity, lest we once again turn ourselves into Hamas’ useful idiots.

Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007.

Hamas’ control of Gaza must end now

It’s easy to note the parallels between Hamas’ attack on Israel and the 1973 Yom Kippur war. This war, too, can lead to a similar outcome.

August 2023

President Xi Jinping’s tenure has been marked by a shift to greater state control of the economy.

Seven ways the West can manage China’s alarming fall

The main challenge Beijing presents in the coming decade stems not from its rise but from its decline – something to be feared and handled accordingly.

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