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|Peter Boettke| As we get ready for the fall 2022 semester I am preparing to teach PhD courses in the Austrian Theory of the Market Process I and Economic Sociology and Political Economy I. A common link between these courses...

Just like any other medium, video games can serve pedagogical purposes.

W.H. Auden once proposed that the extent of civilization could be judged by a dual standard: both “the the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.” I don’t fully agree, but at least to me, the idea captures something important. Here’s how Auden put it in his introductory editor’s essay for The … Continue reading Auden on Civilization: “The Degree of Diversity Attained and the Degree of Unity Retained”
The post Auden on Civilization: "The Degree of Diversity Attained and the Degree of Unity Retained" first appeared on Conversable Economist.

Richard Bourke's (2018) "What is conservatism? History, ideology, party" critically discusses (inter alia) Samuel P. Huntington's (1957) "Conservatism as an Ideology." Yes, that Huntington (1927–2008). What follows is not about the clash of civilizations, promise. Bourke claims that "the conservatism of Oakeshott and Huntington, like the liberalism of Hayek and Rawls, reflects an effort to fabricate an […]

A few weeks ago, Daniel Dennett published an alarmist essay ("Creating counterfeit digital people risks destroying our civilization") in The Atlantic that amplified concerns Yuval Noah Harari expressed in the Economist.+ (If you are in a rush, feel free to skip to the next paragraph because what follows are three quasi-sociological remarks.) First, Dennett's piece is (sociologically) notable because in […]

Joe Scarborough had his first media experience hosting a call-in show on public access television to raise his political profile during a run for Congress. He won that 1994 Congressional race and held the Florida seat until 2001 before returning to television full-time. Now the co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, he joined David to discuss the violence at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, his hot and cold relationship with Donald Trump, what happens next for the Republican Party, and his new book, Saving Freedom: Truman, the Cold War, and the Fight for Western Civilization.
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Colleen Hroncich


In the United States today, the word "liberal" is often linked to Democrats and others on the political left who favor using government to implement social change. But the word actually comes from the Latin root liber, which means free. And that is at the heart of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education (ICLE), which was founded in 1999. ICLE's mission is to renew Catholic schools "by drawing on the Church's tradition of education, which frees teachers and students for the joyful pursuit of faith, wisdom, and virtue."
According to the Institute, most modern schools are based on a pragmatic, utilitarian, secular philosophy that is fragmented and focused on skills, job training, and standardized tests. A Catholic classical liberal arts education, on the other hand, emphasizes wisdom, independent thought, and discovery while focusing on the whole child created in the image of God.
ICLE provides a number of resources for schools that want to adopt the Catholic classical educational philosophy. For schools that are considering this path, ICLE offers presentations for parents, clergy, and boards as well as training for teachers and school leaders. There are also conferences, workshops on various topics, publications, and site visits.
New this year after a pilot program in Denver, ICLE is launching a Catholic Educator Formation and Credential (CEFC) program. This 18‐​month program, delivered online and in‐​person, is designed to be an alternative to state licensure that can be used by Catholic dioceses across the nation.
Emily Zgonc is the principal at St. Michael School, a Catholic school in western Pennsylvania that was founded in 1899. This year, the school is embarking on a new ICLE partnership that Emily is very excited about. "ICLE has been working with Catholic schools across the United States to support a refreshing renewal of Catholic education," she explains.
"We're going back to our roots of what made Catholic education so effective and vibrant: the importance of story and wonder. Our students will be reading great stories that they can delve deeply into, befriending and learning life lessons from the characters. Instead of bland 'social studies,' our students will learn the history of western civilization and where they fit in that story. Going beyond a typical science class, we're going to incorporate nature studies so our students can 'get their hands dirty' and dig into what they are learning about, awakening a sense of wonder and leading to deep questions. Our newly revamped curriculum will help our students grow to become intelligent, curious, and engaging adults."
St. Michael School is not alone. Interest in classical education, including ICLE, has exploded in recent years. Earlier this week, ICLE hosted its national conference at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. While the Institute expanded conference capacity by 25 percent compared to last year, the event still sold out quicker than in the past.
I attended the ICLE conference to participate on a panel about school choice and Catholic schools. One of the topics I discussed was how the government largely monopolized education in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which crowded out many other models. School choice policies, like tax credit scholarships, education savings accounts, and vouchers, are helping to correct that problem. As interest grows in education options beyond local district schools—including interest in classical Catholic schools like ICLE partners—the expansion of school choice programs will help families access these options.

The most important security issue for the United States, the contest/competition/rivalry with China, may soon fade away.The plausibility of this proposition is enhanced if we take as a parallel not the rivalry with the USSR during the Cold War, but the one that smoked through the 1980s and early 1990s when Japan appeared to be becoming "Number One." The rather benign ending of that rivalry may have something to say about what will happen as China slides into what many suggest will be a lengthy period of slow growth or even stagnation.In both cases, the perceived threats have been primarily economic.JapanAs with China today, concerns about Japanese economic growth and business practices were once intense and widespread.In a 1987 best-seller, Yale's Paul Kennedy confidently listed a set of reasons why Japan was likely to expand faster than other major powers, stressing the country's "immensely strong" industrial bedrock and its docile and diligent work force. He also predicted that Japan was likely to become "much more powerful" economically. Meanwhile, Harvard's Samuel Huntington assured us, in phrases that sound much like what we are hearing about the China challenge today, that a need had suddenly arisen to fear not "missile vulnerability" but "semiconductor vulnerability," that "economics is the continuation of war by other means," and that there was danger in the fact that Japan had become the largest provider of foreign aid and had endowed professorships at Harvard and MIT. One book of the time was even entitled, "The Coming War with Japan," and some analysts argued that Japan by natural impulse would soon come to yearn for nuclear weapons.Fareed Zakaria, managing editor of Foreign Affairs at the time, recalled a few years ago his experience "sorting through manuscript after manuscript arguing that Japan was going to take over the world."The public responded to this threatening perspective — especially after the diabolical Japanese bought Rockefeller Center (which they later sold at a loss) and a major Hollywood film studio. By 1989, the Japanese "threat" was seen by the public to be nearly comparable to the one posed by the still heavily armed Soviet Union, and America was convinced that Japan would be the number one economic power in the next century.Politicians predictably followed suit, finding that Japan-bashing sold well. In 1987, several members of Congress publicly sledgehammered Toshiba products on the front steps of the Capitol. Meanwhile, Donald Trump complained at the time, "They come over here, they sell their cars, their VCRs. They knock the hell out of our companies," and, "First they take all our money with their consumer goods, then they put it back in buying all of Manhattan."These concerns evaporated in the early 1990s when Japan's "threatening" economy stagnated and the American one surged. Huntington quickly decided that, as it turned out, the real problem was actually a "clash of civilizations" like the one going on at the time in Bosnia, and Kennedy moved on to warn of the dangers from job‑stealing robots and — as the rise in world population began to stagnate or even reverse — population explosions.ChinaWhen he began his quest for the presidency in 2016, Trump tried Japan-bashing again, designating it along with China and Mexico as a country where "we are getting absolutely crushed on trade."However, by that time Japan's growth had been mostly flat, and trade friction had become much more subdued even though the United States continued (and still continues) to run large trade deficits with Japan while Japan can still make foreign investment difficult.China-bashing sold much better, as Trump found out in a speech in which his line, "We can't allow China to rape our country, and that's what we're doing," inspired an approving roar from the audience. Trump spent the rest of the 2016 campaign building on that theme and repeating much of it in his 2020 campaign, as did many other candidates.Something similar to the Japanese experience may now be happening with the China threat as its growth slumps and the U.S., far from being "displaced" in its GDP ranking as number one, retains its statistical advantage.Most troubling for China is a growing set of difficulties, most of them deriving from a determination to prioritize control by the antiquated and kleptocratic Chinese Communist Party over economic development. The list of resulting problems is substantial: endemic corruption, environmental degradation, slowing growth, capricious shifts in government policies (including the abruptly canceled "zero COVID" policy), inefficient enterprises, fraudulent statistical reporting, a rapidly aging population, enormous overproduction, huge youth unemployment, increasing debt, a housing bubble, restive minorities, the alienation of Western investors, and a clampdown on civil liberties. There also seems to be something of a decline in confidence in, and in the credibility of, the Communist Party's dictates, a change that could have dire long‐term consequences for the regime.The ComparisonThere are some non-comparable elements between the cases, of course. Despite books like "The Coming War with Japan," concerns about Tokyo were less military than they are for China, which has increased its defense expenditures and is accused of threatening to invade Taiwan and becoming a dominant "hegemon" in its area, while expanding its global reach.Nonetheless, the perceived threat remains mainly economic. For example, a recent report by a devotedly anti-China committee in Congress restricts its concerns to what it calls China's "economic aggression" (while recommending a series of changes including a rise in tariffs that might cost the American economy nearly two trillion dollars over five years).Although books entitled "Destined for War" may continue to sell for a while, China's economic stagnation (but not collapse) is in the air, and some elements of its counterproductive "wolf warrior" diplomacy have been relaxed. As a result, the political appeal of China-bashing may be headed for a degree of remission.When Toyota became the number one car maker in the U.S. in recent years, scarcely anyone noticed and fewer cared. If there's an electric car in the future, it may well be Chinese. But, if the Japan analogy holds, it is likely that the reaction will be much the same.

Despite serious concerns about possible Israeli war crimes and even "plausible" allegations of genocidal acts in its war in the Gaza Strip, the former chief of U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, has accepted a fellowship from one of Washington's most hawkish pro-Israel organizations.The Jewish Institute for National Security of America, or JINSA, announced last week that Gen. Frank McKenzie, who led CENTCOM from 2019 to April 2022, would become the Hertog Distinguished Fellow at JINSA's Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy.JINSA, which was a major promoter of the U.S. invasion of Iraq 21 years ago (when its name was the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs), has also long championed more confrontational military policies toward Iran, including providing Israel with the means to attack Iran's nuclear facilities and supporting it if it chooses to do so."We are thrilled and honored to have Gen [sic] McKenzie join JINSA," said Michael Makovsky, the group's president and CEO. "As a former CENTCOM commander and J-5, he will be an invaluable source and contributor to JINSA's work on U.S. strategic challenges and opportunities in the Mideast, and how to bolster the U.S.-Israel security relationship."JINSA's press release also highlighted McKenzie's oversight as CENTCOM commander of the "killing of Iran's Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani" in January 2020.Aside from promoting pro-Israel policy positions, JINSA's main work has consisted of conducting educational programs and exchanges between U.S. and Israeli military officers since its founding nearly 50 years ago. "JINSA believes that Israel is the most capable and critical U.S. security partner in the 21st century and that a strong America is the best guarantor of Western civilization," according to its current mission statement.During the current Gaza war, JINSA has produced a steady stream of webinars featuring, among others, senior Israeli retired military officers, and near-daily email updates on "Operation Swords of Iron," virtually all of which echo the Israeli government's version of its campaign. JINSA also defend Israel against growing charges by international human rights groups and U.N. experts that its armed forces are guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide evidence for which was deemed "plausible" in January by the International Court of Justice.McKenzie is the first former CENTCOM commander to associate himself formally with JINSA, although the group's roster of "experts," includes several other former regional commanders, including Adm. James Stavridis who served as commanders of both SOUTHCOM and EUCOM, and the former AFRICOM commander, Gen. David Rodriguez. Among other experts are former deputy EUCOM commander Air Force Gen. Charles "Chuck" Wald, who has published a number of op-eds in prominent newspapers over the past dozen years urging U.S. air strikes against Iran's nuclear program.Aside from retired senior military officers, JINSA's experts feature well-known neoconservatives, a number of whom served in various capacities in the George W. Bush administration and played important roles in promoting the 2003 Iraq invasion and subsequent occupation. They include Elliott Abrams, who oversaw U.S. policy in the Middle East on the National Security Council, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who served as former Vice President Dick Cheney's national security adviser until his indictment for perjury, John Hannah, who succeeded Libby in Cheney's office, Eric Edelman, who served as Cheney's deputy national security adviser and then as under secretary of defense policy under then-Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, and Robert Joseph, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.Makovsky, JINSA's director, moved to Israel as a young man and subsequently worked on Iraq in the Pentagon under Rumsfeld before becoming foreign policy director at the Bipartisan Policy Center where he headed a task force that produced a series of extraordinarily hawkish reports on Iran beginning in 2008. He moved most of the BPC task force staff and advisers to JINSA when he took it over in 2013.For JINSA, McKenzie's acceptance of a fellowship amounts to a real catch, given his recent service as chief of CENTCOM, whose domain stretches from Egypt to Pakistan and Central Asia. Under his command, Israel, which had come under EUCOM's jurisdiction for decades (due to the hostility of most of the region's Arab states), was integrated into CENTCOM — a major priority for both Israel and JINSA and one made possible by the 2020 Abraham Accords under which the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalized relations with Israel. As one JINSA report put it, Israel's inclusion "will enable strategic and operational coordination among the United States, Israel and our Arab partners throughout the region against Iran and other serious shared threats."As noted in Makovsky's announcement, McKenzie also oversaw the assassination of Soleimani, a particularly effective organizer and coordinator of Shi'a militias in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, in an operation reportedly aided by Israeli intelligence. And, of course, McKenzie's direct work with the IDF and the military brass of "our Arab partners," authoritarian regimes of the kind long favored by Israel, can only serve to enhance JINSA's work and that of its Israeli Distinguished Fellows, such as Major Gen. Amikam Norkin, a former commander of the Israeli Air Force and member of the IDF General Staff, and Major Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror, a 36-year IDF veteran who also served as Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu's national security adviser and who is regularly featured on JINSA's webinars as a commentator on the IDF's Gaza war.While McKenzie was always careful not to publicly question or contradict U.S. policy while CENTCOM commander, he has been more vocal during retirement. Between the outset of Israel's Gaza war and early February, he was particularly critical of what he described as the Biden administration's "mush" response to attacks on U.S. outposts by pro-Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq and by Houthi rebels in Yemen on shipping in the Red Sea. Recalling what he characterized as Iran's "back[ing] down" after Soleimani's assassination — others would question that characterization — McKenzie argued in the ultra-hawkish opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal that "[t]o reset deterrence, we must apply violence that Tehran understands. …Iranians understand steel." While that no doubt sounds like music to the ears of JINSA's neoconservative funders and experts, McKenzie has also sung somewhat more dissonant notes. On CBS News' "Face the Nation" last month, he clarified that he was "not advocating for striking Iran," but rather not to entirely rule that out that possibility. Even more discordant with JINSA's approach to the Gaza war, he implicitly criticized Israel's ongoing campaign — not, notably because of the appalling civilian toll and destruction it has created — but rather for its leaders' failure to conceive a "vision of an end-state when you begin a military campaign.""And I would argue that needs to be something like a two-state solution. You're going to need help from the Arab nations in the region to go in there and …do something in Gaza. I think Israeli occupation would be the least desirable of all outcomes," he said.Conversely, JINSA and Abrams' similarly hawkish Vandenberg Coalition have been hyping their recent joint plan for an "end-state." While they agreed that Arab states, notably Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt, should indeed oversee (and fund) Gaza's relief, reconstruction, and "deradicalization," security, in their opinion, should be provided by "capable national forces from outside the Middle East and/or private security contractors" in close coordination with Israel which, however, would retain its "freedom of military action throughout the Strip." Or occupation by another name.As for a two-state solution, the report agrees that endorsement of a "long-term political horizon for two states" should be recognized by all concerned. But "rushing ahead with glossy and cosmetic quick fixes, high-level diplomatic gambits, elections, and reunification of the West Bank and Gaza will almost certainly backfire across the board," according to the report, which envisions "an arduous and lengthy process" even before "a revived peace process."Meanwhile, whatever "coalition of the willing" that can be cobbled together to oversee Gaza should focus even more importantly on "strengthening shared U.S.-Israel-Arab interests in resisting Iran-led hegemony," according to the report, an approach that clearly plays to McKenzie's CENTCOM strengths.

For the first time — and it is rather remarkable that this is the first time — the United Nations COP28 climate summit beginning this week in Dubai will include a "Global Stocktake" of progress made in achieving the goals set out and commitments made by global agreements since the 2015 Paris climate accords. If this stocktaking is honest, it will also be extremely depressing.In order to prevent the rise in global temperatures since pre-industrial times from exceeding the reasonably safe limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), COP26 in Glasgow established a goal of reducing fossil fuel emissions by 45 percent by 2030. Those goals are now unachievable. Based on present trajectories, emissions will actually rise nine percent above 2010 levels by that date. Since carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years, this means that a rise above 1.5 degrees Celsius is now inevitable and cannot subsequently be reversed, at least with any technology now available to us.The inevitable result will be an intensification of the heat waves, droughts, forest fires and floods that have plagued large parts of the world — including the United States — over the past year. Without a radical change of course, however, much worse lies ahead. If emissions continue to rise until 2030, it is almost impossible to imagine how "net zero" (whereby carbon extracted from the atmosphere equals that put into it) can be achieved by 2050. Even with the commitments made by states under the Paris agreement — hailed as a radical breakthrough in climate change action — it has been estimated that by the end of this century global temperatures will rise by 2.5 degrees Celsius. This would bring us into quite unknown territory. The negative impacts of natural disasters and on agricultural yields in key parts of the world will rise exponentially. Perhaps new crops genetically modified to withstand heat will ward off mass famines, or perhaps not. Apart from anything else, hundreds of millions of agricultural workers in Asia and elsewhere cannot be genetically modified to withstand sustained exposure to temperatures that are lethal to human beings.This will happen even if this rise in temperatures occurs, as it has until now, in a linear and gradual fashion (gradual by the standards of humanity, not of the Earth). There is however a real, albeit unquantifiable, risk that such an increase will lead to "tipping points" and "feedback loops," whereby a rise of two degrees will lead to three degrees and three degrees to four degrees over a short period of time. If so, civilization as we know it will be destroyed. No organized society on Earth could withstand both the physical disruption involved and the immense movements of desperate people that would result.This danger of feedback loops exists primarily in the Arctic, where the melting of sea ice reduces the reflectivity of sunlight back into space, and the melting of the Arctic permafrost risks releasing enormous quantities of methane from frozen rotted plants. Although methane is far less long-lived than carbon dioxide, it is almost 40 times more powerful in terms of its greenhouse effect. And the Arctic is warming at almost three times the rate of the planetary average.This is why the approach of the U.S. security establishment to the warming of the Arctic is so bitterly indicative. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of papers, briefings and articles have concentrated on the supposed threat that the melting of the Arctic sea ice will allow Russia and China to sail more ships through the region. To this, the only sensible answer must be: So what? Russia and China cannot invade Alaska or Canada through the Arctic, and the danger posed by nuclear missiles or bombers overflying the region has existed for more than sixty years and is completely unaffected by climate change. Meanwhile, these writers appear completely indifferent to the likelihood that climate change in the Arctic will drown American cities, wreck much of U.S. agriculture, and inflict grievous harm on the lives and health of hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens. We are suffering from a severe case of "residual elites;" foreign policy and security establishments that grew up to deal with one kind of challenge — in the U.S. case, World War II and the Cold War — but whose structures, ideologies and economic interests render them incapable of meeting a wholly different set of challenges. A parallel might be made with the "Confucian" elites of 19th-century China. They represented by far the oldest and most successful governing tradition in history; but it was one that was wholly unprepared to meet the completely new challenge of Western imperial capitalism.It must be said of course that this criticism applies just as much or more to the security elites of other major powers, including the Indians and Chinese, who are also focused on geopolitical ambitions and risks at the expense of action against climate change. Indeed, they can be considered even more foolish. While, for a long time to come, developed societies in the West will be able to withstand or adapt to the direct physical effects of climate change, parts of Asia are far more immediately threatened. This is especially true of South Asia, where even fairly limited increases in temperatures are projected to have potentially disastrous impacts on agricultural production. Yet too much of the Indian approach to COP28 seems to consist of diplomatic grandstanding intended to boost India's status and prestige by acting as the leader of the "Global South" in demanding reparations and vastly increased aid from Western countries to compensate for their emissions since the Industrial Revolution. This may be just. But it misses the point that the duty of Indian officials today is to do everything possible to minimize damage to India, above all by reducing India's own steeply rising emissions from coal.The other issue exemplified by South Asia is the prospect that rapid climate change will radically increase migration. It is natural that Western commentators and analysts should concentrate on illegal migration to Europe and America and both the human suffering and the political dangers involved. Yet one of the two most ferociously defended anti-immigrant borders in the world is India's with Bangladesh, a line on which more than 1100 Bangladeshis have been shot dead by Indian security forces over the past decade. Indian worries about Bangladeshi migration have been amplified by the fact that Bangladesh is one of the countries both most over-populated and most endangered by climate change and consequent sea level rise. Moreover, mass Bengali migration into the surrounding hill country has sparked numerous bloody instances of ethnic strife in eastern India over the past decades, and contributed to Burmese hostility to the Bengali-speaking Rohingya minority in Myanmar.After a long series of record-breaking years, 2023 is now set to be the hottest since records began. Across the U.S., local heat records have been shattered. Massive forest fires have devastated areas of northern Canada where such events would have been unthinkable in the past. U.S. neighbors in Central America, already under severe social, economic, criminal and ecological stress, are facing a future when the additional effects of climate change will render their governments completely unable to cope. These are threats to American society and ordinary Americans that dwarf anything China and Russia can do (short of nuclear war). While the Biden administration has declared rhetorically that climate change is an "existential threat," the country's security establishment has still failed to reorder its priorities accordingly. If U.S. elites truly believe that America is the "indispensable nation," they should feel compelled to do so. For if we continue with one international "agreement" after another that fails to meet its own stated goals, then historians of the future will consider that U.S. global leadership failed at its most important test.Sophia Ampgkarian contributed to the research for this article.Dear RS readers: It has been an extraordinary year and our editing team has been working overtime to make sure that we are covering the current conflicts with quality, fresh analysis that doesn't cleave to the mainstream orthodoxy or take official Washington and the commentariat at face value. Our staff reporters, experts, and outside writers offer top-notch, independent work, daily. Please consider making a tax-exempt, year-end contribution to Responsible Statecraft so that we can continue this quality coverage — which you will find nowhere else — into 2024. Happy Holidays!

The 2024 presidential candidates are not holding back. Across the board they are issuing strident condemnations of Hamas's brutal attacks against Israel and support for Israel's ensuing war in Gaza.Nearly all are using the events to blame Biden Administration policies in the Middle East.Only one, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, has urged restraint on the part of the U.S., pointing to his colleagues' anti-Iran rhetoric as a possible slide into war for Washington and a broader Middle East conflagration.Republicans overall offered the most bombastic takes, with Trump proclaiming that his Abraham Accords had brought "peace" to the Middle East before Biden came in and blew it all up.The accords, which sought U.S. normalization with Arab states, were only signed by Morocco, Bahrain, UAE, and Sudan (whose government was overthrown this year and is in the middle of another civil war) before Trump left office. While "peace" is clearly in the eye of the beholder, these agreements were not only upheld, but the Biden White House has praised and sought doggedly to expand them, reportedly offering Saudi Arabia all sorts of concessions to join.That the accords left the actual peace process – between Israel-Palestine – off the table, is being blamed in part for the tinderbox that led to last weekend's attacks.Beyond that, candidates are demanding reprisals, blaming Iran, and warning of terror attacks in the U.S.Cornel West, who is running as an independent primary candidate on Biden's left flank, was the only one to offer a warning against civilian killings on both sides, and lays blame for Hamas's action at the feet of US-Israeli policies.Here's how they all line up:The 2024 Democrats:President Biden: "In this moment we must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself and respond to this attack. There's no justification for terrorism. There's no excuse."Marianne Williamson: "Innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the actions of the Israeli government are, even as I write this, either being tortured or killed or are dead already. Children have been taken hostage. A nation is terrorized. (...) And yes, I know. These events did not occur in a vacuum. I could write about — and indeed I have, and at length — the myriad injustices Palestinians have endured at the hands of Israel. (...) I will have much to say in the coming days about what is happening in Israel and how I feel the United States should respond. For now, I stand with Israel. And I stand with the Palestinian people. I do not stand with Hamas, nor will I ever. For their cause is not justice. Their cause is terror.2024 RepublicansDonald Trump: "The atrocities we are witnessing in Israel would never have happened if I was president." (...) "less than four years ago, we had peace in the Middle East with the historic Abraham Accords. Today we have an all-out war in Israel, and it's going to spread very quickly. What a difference a president makes."Later he added in a Truth Social post, in all-caps: "CROOKED JOE BIDEN MUST TAKE BACK AND FREEZE THE 6 BILLION DOLLARS RIGHT NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. HOW COULD ANYONE BE SO INCOMPETENT AND STUPID? BIDEN CAUSED THIS WAR, AND IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE!!!This has become a ubiquitous charge lobbed against the White House by Republicans in the wake of the Hamas attacks. The U.S. had unfrozen $6 billion in Iranian oil profits that were being held by South Korea, in exchange for the release of U.S. hostages last month. The money is currently held by Qatar, which was expected to be doled out for humanitarian needs in Iran. None of that money has left Doha, according to reports.Gov. Ron DeSantis: Proposed anti-Iran sanctions for the state of Florida on Tuesday, calling the Tehran government a "clearinghouse for terrorist funding in the region." Meanwhile, he said, "Israel, with the full support of the United States, should kill Hamas members and extinguish their entire infrastructure,"He also blamed Biden for unfreezing $6 billion for Iran.Amb. Nikki Haley: Her message to Israel was simple. "Finish them. Hamas did this, you know Iran's behind this. Finish them.""What happened to Israel could happen here in America," Haley said in a separate interview. "I have been terribly worried about the fact that Iran has said that the easiest way to get into America is through the Southern border … we don't need to wait for another 9/11."Vice President Mike Pence: "Biden should demand the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages in Gaza and direct JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) to be prepared to mobilize US Special Forces with Israeli Defense Forces to get our people home. Hamas gives 'em up, or we go get 'em."In response to a report that Biden is considering sending a second aircraft carrier, Pence said "Just do it!"Pence also attacked what he said were "voices of appeasement" in the GOP, including Ramaswamy, Trump, and DeSantis, who have all urgedrestraint and questioned U.S. interests in the Ukraine War. "This is also what happens when you have leaders in the Republican Party signaling retreat on the world stage."Sen Tim Scott: "The last thing we need is a Joe Biden wing of the Republican Party on foreign policy," echoing Pence on the issue of Israel and Hamas.He also called the attacks "an assault on Western Civilization. The truth is though, Joe Biden funded these attacks on Israel. America's weakness is blood in the water for bad actors, but this is worse than that. We didn't just invite this aggression, we paid for it."Later, he added, "at least 9 Americans have been killed at the hands of evil Hamas terrorists. It's time to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel, who has the resources and the power to wipe Hamas off the map."Gov. Chris Christie: "What I would be doing is making sure, one, that Israel has everything that it needs to be able to take whatever actions it needs to take." In this interview, he also criticizes "irresponsible" GOP House members for removing Speaker Kevin McCarthy and paralyzing the House in a time of crisis.More Christie: "Biden's appeasement of Israel's enemies has invited this war against Israel. Appeasement anywhere never works. We must do whatever it takes to support the State of Israel in its time of grave danger, and we must end the scourge of Iran-backed terrorism. This terrorism is funded by Biden's idiotic release of $6 billion to the Iranians."The Hamas war against Israel is now the second war started under Biden's failed presidency, first by Russia in Ukraine and now by Hamas in Israel. Both could have been deterred by strong American leadership."Christie also blamed U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as signaling weakness.Vivek Ramaswamy: He pushes for strong support of Israel and blasts Hamas, but warns of a wider war that could include the U.S. He presented a 6-point plan on X, which included critiques of Haley and Pence for escalatory rhetoric:"These histrionics are unhelpful & unserious. The U.S. should provide Israel with diplomatic support, intelligence-sharing, and necessary munitions to defend its own homeland, while taking special care to avoid a broader regional war in the Middle East that would *not* advance U.S. interests."The 2024 independentsRobert F. Kennedy Jr.: "This ignominious, unprovoked, and barbaric attack on Israel must be met with world condemnation and unequivocal support for the Jewish state's right to self-defense. We must provide Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself — now. As President, I'll make sure that our policy is unambiguous so that the enemies of Israel will think long and hard before attempting aggression of any kind."I applaud the strong statements of support from the Biden White House for Israel in her hour of need. However, the scale of these attacks means it is likely that Israel will need to wage a sustained military campaign to protect its citizens. Statements of support are fine, but we must follow through with unwavering, resolute, and practical action. America must stand by our ally throughout this operation and beyond as it exercises its sovereign right to self-defense."Cornel West: In an interview with POLITICO, West said that "Israel and [the] United States are primarily responsible" for the violence that took place near the Gaza strip that has resulted in more than 1,000 deaths and hundreds more in retaliatory strikes. But, he added, "Hamas must take responsibility for killing innocent folk.""The United States bears some responsibility, no doubt about that. And I think that Hamas and [Islamic J]ihad bear responsibility for killing innocent people," he said. "Palestinians have a right to defend themselves in the same way that Israel has a right to defend itself. There's no doubt about that. But neither has a right to kill innocent people."He added that "the state of Israel has been doing that for 75 years."Earlier, West said, "I would stop the killing of innocent people — be they Palestinians or Israelis — by calling for an end to the vicious U.S.-supported Israeli occupation. This violent resistance to oppression is the desperate language of an occupied people."