The Greater Middle East: Part 2 with Bret Stephens – Melbourne

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Join us in Melbourne, on Thursday June 20 for an evening featuring Bret Stephens. This event will feature a lecture by Bret and conversation moderated by Tom Switzer.

The critics of Israel who claim that American Jews must choose between Zionism and liberalism have it backward. According to Bret Stephens, the illiberals aren’t the people defending the right of an imperfect but embattled democracy to defend its territory and save its hostages. They are the people who, like the former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, want Israel wiped off the map and aren’t ashamed to say so.

Meanwhile, the best way to get Hamas to stop fighting is to beat it. No Israeli government is going to agree to a Palestinian state in the West Bank if it risks resembling Gaza.

Bret Stephens is an opinion columnist for The New York Times and the founder and editor-in-chief of SAPIR, a new quarterly devoted to issues of Jewish concern. He has previously served as editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post and as foreign-affairs columnist of the Wall Street Journal, where he was also deputy editorial-page editor.

Bret Stephens is author of America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder (2014). He is the winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary, the 2019 Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and the recipient of three honorary doctorates. Listen to Bret on Tom Switzer’s former ABC Radio National program, in an episode on the intellectual decline of American conservatism from 2017 and in a more recent exchange on the Ukraine crisis.

Tom Switzer is the Executive Director at the Centre for Independent Studies, and formerly hosted Between the Lines on the ABC’s Radio National. He is also a regular contributor to The Australian and the Australian Financial Review.

This event is the second in a 2-part series on The Greater Middle East After October 7, part 1 will feature John Mearsheimer May 15 in Sydney. Tickets available here.