You Don’t Need to Be an Expert on Israel-Palestine

Intellectuals often insist that the war in Gaza is “complicated.” And indeed, the historical and cultural features of the Israel-Palestine conflict are complex. But too often, intellectuals use this complexity to avoid confronting the issues at stake.

Christopher Rufo argues that progressives in America see the Palestinian cause as analogous to their own. And it doesn’t take an expert, he says, to know which side of the conflict deserves support. “I don’t need to trace every historical movement of the peoples of Israel, or justify every maneuver on today’s battlefield, to conclude—at least in an American context—that Israel’s supporters, whatever their faults, stand for civilization, and that Hamas’s apologists stand for barbarism.”

In collaboration with the Sun Valley Policy Forum (SVPF), several luminaries from the Manhattan Institute will speak at this year’s SVPF Summer Institute, on July 1st and 2nd. This two-day conference retreat will be held in the premier mountain town of Sun Valley, Idaho. Reihan Salam (Manhattan Institute President), Jesse Arm (Manhattan Institute Executive Director of External Affairs & Chief of Staff), Heather Mac Donald (Thomas W. Smith Fellow and Contributing Editor of City Journal), and Senior Fellows Jason Riley and Abigail Shrier will be featured in the programming, along with other notable thought leaders. As a benefit to City Journal readers, Reserve ticket bundle registrations will be upgraded to the Bronze pass level, which includes access to a private cocktail party. For more information on the program, go here; to register with MI benefits, go here.

According to a memo leaked to the press in April, the Trump administration was considering defunding grants for Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics—community-based facilities that provide crucial care for the seriously mentally ill. The White House has since spared the program and recommended more funding. As Sally Satel writes, the onus is now on Congress to preserve this lifeline for people with conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

“CCBHCs serve as one-stop shops for people with serious mental illness, providing coordinated physical and specialty behavioral health services,” Satel notes. Now that the White House has endorsed the program, “it is up to Congress to maintain the funding or even expand it.”

Manhattan Institute Fellow Robert VerBruggen recently examined the rise and fall of homicide rates in 78 cities since 2020. He found that cities with preexisting vulnerabilities tended to see the biggest increases. “A key lesson here is that, when homicide begins to rise, policymakers should focus efforts on places that already have the highest levels of violence,” he writes, “paying special attention to policing and perhaps also employment trends.”

Read more about his findings here.

A shift appears to be taking place in higher education. Students are abandoning the Ivies and heading south—to Florida, in particular. “Combined with threatened funding cuts to woke universities, this trend could signal a north-to-south brain drain,” Ilya Shapiro writes. “Lower living costs and lighter regulatory burdens in the Sun Belt—particularly for businesses and tech firms hiring graduates—could further accelerate the migration.”

Read more about what’s behind these moves here.

During the recent Bradley Prizes ceremony in Washington, D.C., honoree James Piereson delivered remarks about the evolution of American conservatism. He noted that the U.S. faces a daunting set of problems. “Progressives are unlikely to address them,” he said. “In many cases, they are responsible for the problems in the first place. It will be left to conservatives to confront them.”

Read an edited version of his speech here.

“To make the subways safer, the city first needs to stop demonizing and abusing its police department.”

Photo credits: Alexi J. Rosenfeld / Stringer / Getty Images News via Getty Images