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I know we’ll get around to talking about Donald Trump’s big South Carolina primary win, but first I want to pick your brain about Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. It isn’t happening till next week, but I’m guessing the White House speechwriters are working hard on it now. Any advice on what the president should say and how he should say it? Gail: Then at some point he’ll turn to foreign affairs. Biden’s already laced into that one once, but he was so … vigorous that I’m hoping for a repeat.

Persons: Bret Stephens, Gail, Donald Trump’s, Joe, Gail Collins, Bret, Will, Biden’s Organizations: Carolina, NATO Locations: Joe Biden’s State, Russia, United States

☆ Opinion | How Biden Can Avenge Navalny’s Death
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-20 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

President Biden said last week that he was “looking at a whole number of options” to make good on his 2021 warning to Vladimir Putin that Russia would face “devastating” consequences if Aleksei Navalny were to die in prison. As several close Russia watchers told me, however, there’s much more to be done about the first. Browder is best known as the moving force behind the Magnitsky Acts, which put sanctions on Russian officials implicated in corruption and other abuses. And it’s been resisted by U.S. government officials who fear that it exceeds what American law allows and would encourage a flight from dollar assets. As for the flight-from-the-dollar argument, it might otherwise be persuasive if the need to save Ukraine and punish Russia weren’t more urgent.

Persons: Biden, Vladimir Putin, Aleksei Navalny, Putin, ” Bill Browder, Browder, it’s, Larry Tribe, Kaplan, Fink Organizations: Finances, Putin, U.S, Harvard, Heckler, Democracy Locations: Russia, Ukraine

Gail Collins: So Bret, Donald Trump gets a roughly $355 million fine for fibbing about his fortune. Bret Stephens: Gail, I would never want to stop you from chortling, but here goes: I think the case was ridiculous and the verdict outrageous. It lends credence to the Trumpian belief that the justice system is rigged, which will help him politically. Gail: I know you’re worried all this will make him look like a martyr to a whole lot of voters. But I can’t help thinking a string of 91 pending felony counts has to also look pretty darned messy.

Persons: Gail Collins, Bret, Donald Trump, Bret Stephens, Gail, ”

☆ Biden Has a Week He Would Like to Forget - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-12 | by ( Gail Collins | Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It was a no good, very bad week for the “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” who happens to be the 46th president. We’re talking, of course, about the report a Justice Department special counsel filed on President Biden’s handling of classified material — the same kind of material Donald Trump left piled around the toilet. Bret: I used to joke that Trump’s behavior gave new meaning to the term “anal retentive.” Maybe we can start describing Biden as mnemonically challenged. Gail: While Trump’s behavior with classified documents was inexcusable, Biden’s was a lot less serious — inadvertently leaving stuff in the garage. But the counsel who cleared Biden of any serious misbehavior — a Republican — did seem to feel compelled to add that Biden’s excuse was “diminished faculties in advancing age.”

Persons: Bret Stephens, Gail, Gail Collins, gosh, Bret, We’re, Biden’s, Donald Trump, Biden, mnemonically, —, Republican —, ” Organizations: Republican

Gail Collins: So, Bret — more than 350,000 new jobs in January without an inflation surge! I guess that means the Biden plan is really working out, hehehehe. First, prices for groceries are still too damn high — up 25 percent in the last four years, according to The Washington Post. That practically amounts to a campaign ad for Donald Trump every time people are at checkout. Gail: Well, it’s a pretty good sign for Biden that an economic conservative like you so desperately wants him to win.

Persons: Gail Collins, Bret —, Biden, Bret Stephens, Donald Trump, Peter Coy, Joe, Gail Organizations: The Washington

☆ Opinion | Abolish the U.N.’s Palestinian Refugee Agency
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

United Nations agencies and officials are no strangers to scandal and infamy. In the 1980s, Kurt Waldheim, a former U.N. secretary general, was unmasked as a former Nazi. He was the same secretary general who denounced Israel’s 1976 rescue of Jewish hostages in Entebbe as “a serious violation” of Uganda’s national sovereignty. Now comes the latest scandal of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, better known as UNRWA. Last Friday, Israeli officials presented the U.S. government with an intelligence dossier detailing the involvement of 12 UNRWA employees, seven of them schoolteachers, in the massacre of Oct. 7.

Persons: Saddam Hussein, Kurt Waldheim, Ronen Bergman, Patrick Kingsley Organizations: Nations, Democratic, Iraq, Nazi, United Nations Relief, Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, “ Intelligence, Street Locations: Haiti, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Entebbe, Gaza

It’s fair to say that Nikki Haley has next-to-no chance of beating Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. Or join forces with someone like Joe Manchin in a third party? Gail Collins: Third parties are for people who don’t care who wins the election as long as they’ve got their name on the ballot. Bret: A third-party run with her and Manchin might subtract more votes from Trump than from Biden. Gail: And I’d like her to stay in, if only to spare us nine straight months of nothing but Trump vs. Biden.

Persons: Bret Stephens, Gail, Nikki Haley, Donald Trump, Joe Manchin, Gail Collins, they’ve, Bret, Biden Organizations: Republican, Trump, Biden

☆ Opinion | The Meaning of Gaza’s Tunnels
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Israel provided Gaza with much of its electricity and other critical goods even after Hamas came to power in 2007. Now, as Israeli troops uncover more of Gaza’s vast underground city, the falsity of the accusation has become even more apparent. According to a report this month in The New York Times, Israeli defense officials now estimate that Hamas’s tunnels measure between 350 and 450 miles in a territory that’s just 25 miles long. (By comparison, the London Underground is only 249 miles long.) Some of Gaza’s tunnels are wide enough for cars; some are more than 150 feet deep; some serve as munitions depots; others are comfortably kitted out as command bunkers.

Persons: Gazans Organizations: Israel, New York Times Locations: Gaza, Egypt, Israel

Gail: If DeSantis weren’t such an awful candidate, this toppling of his campaign might be a little sad. Bret: The Trump endorsement was dishonorable but probably inevitable, politically speaking. If Trump wins the presidency, DeSantis will have to live with him as a governor; if Trump loses, he can try to court Trump’s voters in 2028. That’s assuming Trump isn’t on the ballot in 2028. Which means Trump will, for all practical purposes, be the nominee by the middle of this week.

Persons: Gail Collins, Bret, Ron DeSantis, Bret Stephens, Nope, Gail, Donald Trump, ” wasn’t, Trump, DeSantis, there’s, South Carolina …, Nikki Haley Organizations: Republican, Trump Locations: South Carolina

☆ Opinion | In Davos, Israel’s Hostages Get a Hearing
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-19 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is largely an opportunity for the powerful to mingle with the even more powerful. But the most moving stories I heard this week came from some of the least powerful people here. “I open my eyes and feel my throat close,” Rachel Goldberg told me, describing her mornings over the previous 100-plus days. Hersh and nearly 30 others tried to hide at a small roadside bomb shelter. Terrorists attacked it with hand grenades, then an R.P.G., killing nearly everyone inside.

Persons: I’ve, —, ” Rachel Goldberg, “, Hersh Goldberg, Hersh Organizations: Economic, Nova Locations: Davos, Switzerland, paragliders

☆ Opinion | Understanding Donald Trump’s Appeal
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-18 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Privileges long taken for granted, like good housing and the chance for decent employment and advancement, are fast fading away. The same old, same old posture of the Democratic Party does not. What happened in 2016 is happening again, as once more someone from the old guard comes face to face with someone embodying the desperate fury of millions of people. It is indeed, as Mr. Stephens so eloquently stated, time for those in the liberal establishment to pull their heads out of the sand. Thank you, Mr. Stephens, for sounding the alarm.

Persons: Bret Stephens’s Jan, Stephens Organizations: Trump, Democratic Party

☆ Opinion | The Genocide Charge Against Israel Is a Moral Obscenity
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-16 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In recent decades, as many as three million people perished in a famine in North Korea that was mainly government-induced. But North Korea, Syria and China have never been charged with genocide at the International Court of Justice. It’s obscene because it politicizes our understanding of genocide, fatally eroding the moral power of the term. The war between Israel and Hamas is terrible — as is every war. But if this is genocide, what word do we have for the killing fields in Cambodia, Stalin’s Holodomor in Ukraine, the Holocaust itself?

Persons: Assad, Israel Organizations: International Court of Justice Locations: North Korea, China, gulag, Syria, Israel, Cambodia, Ukraine

I’m trying to remember the last time the Republican winner went on to win the nomination: Ted Cruz in 2016? Gail Collins: And remember, Trump won Iowa in 2020, when he was an incumbent president looking for a second term; that didn’t turn out all that well for him, either. Bret: Not that I’m rooting for him to win in Iowa. Bret: Her zinger in the debate with Ron DeSantis — “You’re so desperate, you’re just so desperate” — could be turned into a country music hit by Miranda Lambert. Or maybe Carly Simon: You’re so desperate, you probably think this race is about you.

Persons: Bret Stephens, Gail, who’ll, Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, Gail Collins, Trump, Bret, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis —, you’re, Miranda Lambert, Carly Simon, You’re Organizations: Republican, Iowa Locations: Iowa

While the real world can get kinda depressing, the debate world is always ready to just chatter away. I want to hear your predictions on the Republican set-to coming this week. Bret Stephens: The idea for the governors’ debate was first mooted when it looked like DeSantis could be the Republican presidential nominee. Now he seems slightly less relevant than the moderator, Sean Hannity, as well as slightly more obnoxious. But I still think DeSantis got the better of Newsom on the substance of their arguments.

Persons: Gail Collins, Bret, I’ve, Gavin Newsom, Ron DeSantis, Bret Stephens, Sean Hannity, DeSantis, Newsom Organizations: Republican

☆ Opinion | How to Kill a Palestinian State
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-28 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

On Oct. 7, the axis of resistance became the face of the Palestinian movement. On Oct. 8, demonstrators around the world chose to embrace that axis. When Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan congresswoman, posted that “75 years later, the Nakba continues to this day” and declined to accept Israel as a Jewish state, she was embracing it. When Judith Butler, the Berkeley professor, told an interviewer that “the roots of the problem are in a state formation that depended on expulsions and land theft to establish its own ‘legitimacy’” and supported a binational state, she was embracing it. “A left that lauds intersectionality hasn’t noticed that Hamas’s axis of support consists of Iran, famous most recently for killing hundreds of protesters demanding women’s freedom.”

Persons: ”, Assad, Mohamed Khairullah, Rashida Tlaib, Judith Butler, ’ ”, ” Susie Linfield, “, hasn’t Organizations: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Israel, Los Locations: Syria, Prospect Park, N.J, Michigan, Berkeley, Los Angeles, ”, N.Y.U, Iran

Bret Stephens: Hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving, Gail. Peggy Noonan had a terrific column last week in The Wall Street Journal, making the case for why Taylor Swift should be Time’s Person of the Year. Gail Collins: Had a great Thanksgiving, Bret. And she’s currently giving a lift to everyone slogging through the football-watching season with their loved ones: Will Taylor be there to cheer Travis Kelce on at the Super Bowl? Bret: You’re assuming the Chiefs make the Super Bowl.

Persons: Bret Stephens, Hope, Gail, Peggy Noonan, Taylor Swift, Gail Collins, Bret, Can’t, Swift, she’s, Will Taylor, Travis Kelce, You’re, I’ll, … Gail Organizations: Street, Kansas City Chiefs, Chiefs, Miami, Eagles

☆ Opinion | The ‘Cease-Fire Now’ Imposture
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +5 min

They give the lie to the “Cease-Fire Now” mirage, or imposture, that has become a rallying cry at pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Why should it matter that it was Hamas that broke the cease-fire when Palestinian civilians are being killed in large numbers by Israeli bombs and bullets? As I write, there are reports that Hamas might release some hostages in exchange for a brief cease-fire. What about for Palestinians — women, children and noncombatant men for whom the calls for a cease-fire are supposedly intended? There are good intentions, if also ignorance and shortsightedness, among many of those demanding a cease-fire.

Persons: Hillary Clinton, “, ”, Hamas’s, ’, Israel Organizations: Hamas Locations: Israel, Gaza, Palestine, Iran

Don’t suppose the imminent end of the political career of the dreadful Representative George Santos rises to the level of holiday cheer. Bret Stephens: It’s a depressing world, Gail, so we need to find cheer wherever we can, and the House Ethics Committee report on Santos does make for delightful reading. and was noted as ‘Botox’ in expense spreadsheets ….” Santos would have been around 32 years old at the time. Gail: You’re right. Gail: I can see how Biden felt a little cornered when a reporter asked him if he still believed Xi was a dictator.

Persons: Gail Collins, Bret, George Santos, Bret Stephens, Gail, Santos, ” Santos, You’re, Joe Biden, Xi, “, ”, Antony Blinken, Biden Locations: Communist

☆ Opinion | The Hate That Doesn’t Know Its Own Name
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

College campuses did not feel hostile to Jewish students. Synagogues (at least in the United States) did not have police officers stationed outside their doors. The Anti-Defamation League recorded 751 antisemitic incidents in the United States in 2013. Last week, “Jewish students specifically were warned not to enter M.I.T.’s front entrance due to a risk to their physical safety,” according to a public letter from Jewish students there. A century ago, before the creation of the state of Israel, questions about Zionism were “more of a political or intellectual debate.

Persons: Deborah Lipstadt, David Irving, David, ” Organizations: Defamation League, Irving Locations: Israel, United States, Montreal, U.S, Palestine

Now you’ll tell me that’s wishful thinking …. Gail: Hey, in our current political climate, there are worse things than wishful thinking. And we do have a likely Republican nominee who’s under indictment for virtually every nonviolent crime on the books except double parking. I keep thinking Tim Scott is campaigning hard for that job, although now he has suspended his campaign. You’ve got better Republican insight — see anybody on the stage you could imagine on Trump’s ticket?

Persons: Bret, Ramaswamy, Red Bull, Gail, Natasha Frost, Donald Trump, Haley, She’s, won’t, he’ll, who’s, Trump, Tim Scott, You’ve Organizations: HAL, Trump, Republican Locations: Australia, New Hampshire, South Carolina

☆ Opinion | Israelis Were Shattered on Oct. 7. Can They Recover?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-10 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

Israelis spent 18 years watching Hamas turn to its military advantage every Israeli concession — including free electricity, cash transfers of Qatari funds, work permits for Gazans, thousands of truckloads of humanitarian goods. But while Israelis are still processing the horror from the south, the threat of war looms on every side. Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right finance minister, has even suggested effectively banning the Palestinian olive harvest, ostensibly for security reasons. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with whom Israel had been engaged in a careful rapprochement, has reverted to Islamist form. To many Israelis, there’s a distinct echo of what happened at German universities beginning about a century ago.

Persons: Will, won’t, Camp Iftach, Bezalel Smotrich, Vladimir Putin, Netanyahu, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Israel, ”, It’s, ” Einat Wilf Organizations: West Bank, Palestinian Authority, Super, Harvard, Labor Party Locations: Israel, Gaza, Metula, Lebanon, Jenin, Nablus, Iran, China, Turkey, ”, West, Berlin, Sydney, Australia

☆ Opinion | For America’s Jews, Every Day Must Be Oct. 8
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-07 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

There ought to be a similar sign in every Jewish organization, synagogue and day school, and on the desks of anyone — Jewish or not — for whom the security and well-being of the Jews is a sacred calling: “Every day is Oct. 8.”What was Oct. 8? It wasn’t just the day after the single greatest atrocity against Jews since the Holocaust, an atrocity whose details were impossible to miss because the perpetrators made sure to film them. It was the day when that atrocity was celebrated. On Oct. 8, Jews woke up to discover who our friends are not. Let’s be clear: They and their sibling groups are being used as Jewish beards for aggressive antisemites.

Persons: —, George Floyd’s, paragliders, isn’t Organizations: Jewish, New Locations: Tehran, Manhattan, allyship

Gail Collins: Bret, I know you’re busy writing about your reporting trip to Israel, and I am looking forward to reading all your thoughts. (I guess that’s another definition for the term “manspreading.”) On the economy, voters prefer Trump over Biden by a 22-point margin. And a whopping 71 percent think Biden is too old to be president, as opposed to just 39 percent for Trump. As a matter of law, I think Trump belongs in jail. Gail: I know Trump appears more energetic, but he’s really only a whole lot louder.

Persons: Gail Collins, Bret, gee, Donald Trump, Bret Stephens, Trump, Biden, Pennsylvania —, Gail, Whimper, I’ve, he’s, Alex Honnold, Garry Kasparov, “, Dean Phillips, Kamala Harris, Lloyd Austin, I’m, Harris, —, she’s, Michael Bender, Michael Gold, Trump’s, disjointedness ”, Bomba of, That’s, Josey Wales, Justice Department —, They’re, He’d, George H.W, George H.W . Bush, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, heedlessly, What’s, — Biden, He’s, trounce Trump, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Jared Polis, Wes Moore …, Hope, you’re, Tommy Tuberville, Tuberville, Lindsey Graham, Chuck Schumer, Rashida Tlaib, Tlaib, Israel, She’s, Biden “, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Taylor Greene, let’s, Hissss, Alex P, Keaton, we’ve, nobody’s, Nikki Haley, you’ve, Adrienne Rich, It’s, ”, Haley’s Organizations: Times, Black, —, Women, Biden, Trump, Josey, Justice Department, Bret, Republican Locations: Israel, Siena, Yow, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ukraine, Minnesota, George H.W ., America, Gaza, flopping

☆ Opinion | A Plan to Defeat Hamas and Avoid a Bloodbath
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

Hamas’s master plan, as Bennett sees it, is roughly as follows: Provoke, via its gruesome massacres on Oct. 7, a massive Israeli ground invasion. Already, nearly 800,000 Gazans have fled from north to south, despite efforts by Hamas to keep them in place. “They’re asking for fuel not for their citizens but for their tunnels,” which are used exclusively by Hamas fighters and their allies. “I don’t want to get into a Viet Cong-type war of tunnels,” Bennett says. But the question isn’t whether Bennett’s plan is perfect or if there are gaps to fill.

Persons: Bennett, Khan Younis, They’re, ” Bennett, “, ”, Yasir Arafat, Biden, There’s, David Petraeus Organizations: Force, Israel, Hamas, West Bank, ISIS, Palestinian Locations: Jerusalem, Gaza, Gaza City, Israel, Viet, Iraq, Syria, Algeria, Qatar, Beirut, Lebanon, Tunisia, Kosovo

☆ Opinion | The Palestinian Republic of Fear and Misinformation
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-24 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +5 min

As with many other Palestinian journalists, Said’s primary source of income was working with foreign reporters as a “fixer,” someone who could arrange difficult meetings, translate from Arabic, show you around. Said had an independent streak and he was no fan of Yasir Arafat, which made him particularly helpful in cutting through the Palestinian Authority’s propagandistic bombast. With Said, I interviewed senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, officials in Ramallah, retired terrorists in Nablus, political dissidents in Jenin and construction workers in Hebron. The Palestinian territories, by contrast, are republics of fear — fear of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and of Hamas in Gaza. During the first major Israel-Hamas war, in 2008 and 2009, Palestinian groups claimed the death toll was mostly civilian, with roughly 1,400 people killed.

Persons: Said, Yasir Arafat, ”, I’ll, Gaza’s Shifa, Hani al, Agha, Israel, — Organizations: Street, Palestinian Authority, Hamas, West Bank, Palestinian Journalists Syndicate Locations: Palestinian, Gaza, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Hebron, Israel, Gaza’s, Pyongyang, —

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