bill galston (16:33.127) Well, I have a lot of friends in Israel, and my wife and I have been talking to them. I have some professional contacts. I've been listening to briefings from Israeli military leaders and politicians. And I have never seen

such an overwhelming consensus in Israel. I've been going there for a long, long time. The consensus is simple and stark. The status quo ante cannot be restored, and we cannot allow it to sustain itself through inaction.

We have no choice, the consensus continues. We must go in and destroy Hamas, whatever the cost to us, whatever the cost to them, because allowing them to run free as the dictators of Gaza for a day longer is a formula for another disaster down the road.

We have to create a new reality. We have to create it first by force of arms and then by what comes after. People frankly admit that they don't know what comes after. I listened to a panel discussion involving Israeli journalists and one of them was asked, well, what comes after? And he shrugged and say,

first we will do and then we will think. And I think that's pretty close to the consensus that the first steps are clear. The consequences of taking those first steps are hard to calculate. That bridge will be crossed, you know, when the IDF reaches it and when the War Cabinet reaches it. But that in the meantime, buckle up.

bill galston (18:58.183) because Israel is going to do something it has never done before. It's not going to be pretty. It will erode the easy short-term surge of sympathy for Israel. The language of moral equivalence will soon be heard around the globe. Calls for a ceasefire will soon be heard around the globe. And Israel will not listen.

And can Israel rule Gaza at least for a while? Well, it tried two decades ago and decided that it was a losing game and gave it up with results that soon proved disappointing and now have proved disastrous. So if I were to sum up the thinking of the Israelis that I've talked to,

to and listen to and read about, it is, we have no choice.

bill galston (51:37.171) Well, a painful question.

bill galston (51:44.115) You're right on the facts. Let's redo that Gallup poll in two or three months and see if those numbers remain where they were when Gallup was out in the field a few weeks ago. I would like to believe that they would shift. If they don't,

I will come back on this program and confess that what little residual optimism I have has now disappeared. With regard to the congressional delegation, I think it is really fair to say that there are four or five outliers in a delegation of 112 Democratic House members.

and that the smart ones like AOC smelled a rat immediately. And she aggressively distanced herself from and denounced the DSA rally in New York City.

bill galston (53:08.359) Well, that's a.

bill galston (53:16.175) I'll grant you that, but there's a difference between, say, morally speaking, as well as empirically, between saying don't retaliate and what Hadmas did was just great and Israel made them do it. She didn't make the second statement. She didn't make the third statement. I think it's incumbent upon us in the center, you know, to try to draw the distinctions that perhaps...

people differently situated in the political spectrum are.

But let me make a broader point here. And I speak with some historical authority. I was a student at Cornell University, you know, in the years when we went from sort of late Eisenhower Kennedy, Pell-Mell towards the political world that's much more recognizable to us. And what struck me at that point when students were being outrageous,

was not the idiocy of the hard left, but the weakness of the center left. You know, the absence of moral clarity and to steal the term from Gill, the absence of a spine. I was a student representative to a university council that included the then president of Cornell University, one James Perkins. And I...

described him to myself privately as a tower of jelly, because he had no discernible principles other than keep the peace on campus. And if that means opening your office to people who in coming years would trash it, if it means making excuses for demonstrations that employed unacceptable tactics.

bill galston (55:15.535) In the name of keeping the peace, little if anything was done. And when I read the president of Harvard statement, Claudine Gay, I said to myself, nothing has changed. These are people who have climbed academia's greasy pole and

who genuinely believe that keeping the peace is more important than calling evil and moral idiocy by their rightful names. I think it was George Orwell who said, that in times like these, it's the duty of intelligent people to tell the truth. To state the obvious, thank you. I, you know, that.

That is the quote that I was reaching for and failing to find. And the inability to state the obvious, perhaps the inability to recognize it, but certainly the inability to say it for fear of giving offense to people who will declare you then part of, part of the horrible fascist enemy. That is the real problem.

When people in authority do not have the clarity and the courage to use their authority, then anything goes. That is my analysis of what's going on in all too many college campuses these days.

bill galston (57:08.295) Macroaggression, yes.

bill galston (01:03:43.387) Well, I'm going to change subjects. And I'm not sure whether this is a highlight or a low light, but it kept me amused in very dark times. I'm talking about the continuing saga of Cornel West's presidential campaign.

He started out, if memory serves, as the proclaimed, perhaps self-proclaimed, candidate of the People's Party. Then after a couple of weeks, he decided that the People's Party was too small and too weak. It couldn't give him the kind of platform that he wanted. So he decided then to throw in with the Green Party, the party of

Jill Stein of Unblessed Memory, whose candidacy in 2016 helped to open the door to Donald Trump's narrow victory. Well, it turned out that after a few weeks, Cornell West made an unpleasant discovery, at least unpleasant to him, namely that

He wasn't going to a coronation. He was expected to go to the Green Party's state chapters and tell them why he wanted to be their nominee and what he would do with political power if, you know, against all odds he were actually to attain it. That was too much trouble, he said. It took too much time. What did it take time from? His favorite activity.

which is moving his jaws before adoring crowds. So he has now found the first perfect platform for his presidential candidacy, namely himself. He is running as an independent with no evident infrastructure. I think given where he is now, he would do well to get on the ballot in a handful of states. I think he may not even understand how difficult that is.

bill galston (01:05:57.887) But in the meantime, the logic of dissent has reached its logical conclusion, and that is an independent candidacy standing on the platform of a party of one.

bill galston (01:06:19.375) I'm ready.

bill galston (01:06:29.971) Well, I told you and it kept me entertained in very bad times.

bill galston (01:10:23.411) Well, as I indicated, Mona and Damon, this is particularly amusing because one Victor Orban believes two thirds of current Romania is actually Hungary, unjustly seized by the Treaty of Trianon. So

bill galston (01:10:43.807) Greater Romania versus Greater Hungary. May the better man win.