Sublime

Both threats strike at the heart of democracy, which, as Alexis de Tocqueville famously highlighted in Democracy in America, depends on deep and diverse, non-market, decentralized social and civil connections to thrive

In many ways, even Israelis who did not believe that Iran would attack Israel understood that an Iran that could attack Israel was a game changer.

Terrorism could not defeat Israel, only stain the Palestinians’ reputation and divert global attention from settlements. But a policy designed to isolate, delegitimize, and sanction Israel could bring about its downfall. Lawfare, rather than warfare, became Abbas’s weapon of choice.

challenges us to rethink the classic bright-line distinction between combatants and noncombatants. This line, which lies at the core of the international law of war, has been exploited in the interest of terrorism.

Although the Palestinian demand for the destruction of Israel and the transfer of its Jewish population—as articulated in its covenant—is far less compelling from a moral perspective than the complaints of other stateless and occupied people, such as the Tibetans, the Kurds, and the Basques, the PLO’s resort to global terrorism has leapfrogged Pale