small correction, Israel is fighting more than two - three fronts. Israel is fighting seven fronts, all support by iran: gaza, lebanon, syria, iraq, yaman, and iran itself

As the late William Buckley Jr. once said, he'd rather be governed by the first five hundred people in the phone book than the Harvard faculty.

Hertzel witnessed the Dreyfus affair during the big French behavioral sink, Kahan witnessed what happened on the West Coast during the 60s and started Kahanism. Jews should certainly adjust their policies based on feedback from the current moment. Feedback and growth and change are important for any institution to survive, Judaism included.

The answer given, or not given to the question of NYT’s problematic coverage of Israel was itself problematic. The NYT’s has a decades old history of hostility not only to Israel, but to Jews and authentic Judaism. His answer demonstrates that he is more concerned about his well paying, comfortable position and the accompanying prestige than he is speaking truth to power and confronting Times management. If he had real integrity he would follow in the footsteps of Bari Weiss and walk away from what has clearly become an antisemitic rag.

What a joy to listen to such an intelligent, informed view on the current issues; a breath of fresh air.

Very valuable presentation. Thank you, Harvard Hillel, for this marvelous series!

Making an analogy between the Israel/Hamas war and the Russia/Ukraine war is seriously sloppy thinking. The only similarity is state sovereignty was violated by an aggressor. The nature of the aggressor and the attacked are different as well as the surrounding geostrategic environment.

Thank you for a brilliant interview. I've gained great insights from it, especially the part that "Zionism in 1948 was about Jews wanting to govern themselves, and not to be governed by others, but by the same token, not to govern over others who did not want to be governed by them, that is the Jews..." Just brilliant! 👌🏼💪🏼✌🏼

Bret is marginally better than the glib Ross Douthat.

Very interesting interview, however I do think that prof. Stephens confuses some of his own positions with the position of an Israeli and a Gazan citizen. For example, the so called hated of the Gazans towards Hamas, isn’t bared by the polls. If anything, according to the latest reports, the support for Hamas among the Palestinians has risen quite notably. Also, most of Israelis I talked to, do understand that returning the hostages and eliminating Hamas, most likely are contradictory aims. However, almost everyone I hod this discussion with, had a clear priority among the two. In my limited field of reference, most regarded the elimination of Hamas, as the more strategically important goal.

Stephens right on formulation: "yes to pln state like UAE; no to pln state like yemen." Stephens wrong on likelihood that egypt can be induced by debt relief to a more salutary modus vivendi w Israel; egypt has calculated the econ & other benefits of its recently revealed support for hamas. Stephens horribly wrong in supporting biden's 2020 presidential bid.

He should register as a foreign agent.

Great interview with a sensible and grounded person

There is so much here that indeed gives language to what many of us are feeling. Excellent interview. Thanks for your voice at this challenging time Bret. I was in Israel and the West Bank last month and came away inspired by the peoples who still want to heal into something better. As to potential Palestinian leaders: check out the people who are involved with Roots/Shorashim. Several true Mandelas there.

Bret is intelligent,articulate and worried and rightly so. His kind of speech is becoming more rare and will never hold off the mob.

Pan Arab police force is a terrible idea- 1. Do you expect this force to maintain control using physically against extremist Palestinians? That’s a big ask that’s likely cause more problems that help. I don’t see any sensible Arab country agreeing to this. 2. When security threats are identified and the Arab forces don’t want to immediately act on them, how will isreal respond ? I don’t see them risking another Oct 7th. This will do far more damage to diplomatic and security relationships with these countries than anything positive that could come from it.

This is the condensed thinking of Zionism.

I have always admired Bret Stephens, but this conversation is a huge disappointment. It’s reasonable and nice, but not more than that. No new insights or analysis, maybe a concern about a penumbra of not vocal anti-Israel faculty and students surrounding protests has not been emphasized enough. Bret has a mild case of Trump derangement syndrome and Netanyahu derangememt syndrome, plus what appears like strict, possibly legal, constrains about contradicting the party line of NYT, which made it a colorless and boring conversation. Absence of interesting questions and follow-up from the host didn’t help either. Again, just an intellectually meek and timid conversation. Compare with Niall Ferguson recent talks

17:01 Brett should manage Israeli PR. He is 100% correct on this. It seems to be a universal truth that authoritarian regimes are better at messaging. Is it a necessary truth?

Excellent

Are you kidding me?

Israel is dropping bombs defensively whereas Russia initiated an attack

Bret is very smart and articulate. Love listening to him