Your Cart is Empty
By Marisa Hirschfield ‘27
On April 24th, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens spoke about free speech, journalism, and Israel to approximately one hundred attendees gathered in Guyot Hall. The event, entitled “Writing About Israel as a Columnist and as a Jew,” was co-sponsored by a variety of campus organizations, including B’Artzeinu and the Center for Jewish Life. I attended in my capacity as a Writing Fellow for Princetonians for Free Speech, a contributor to the event.
Stephens began by outlining how Western media gets the Israel narrative wrong, framing Israel as the more powerful adversary in a two-sided conflict. “Most of the media treats the Israel story as a Goliath versus David story in which Israel is Goliath because the Palestinians loom smaller. Expand the frame and what you see is a country that is surrounded by current enemies and historic enemies and very hostile populations.”
The pro-Palestine movement on college campuses was a focal point of the event. Stephens called out what he sees as the liberal hypocrisy of the movement. “If your values are progressive, but you are objectively siding with the most fundamentalist, totalitarian, misogynistic and homophobic movement in the world, something is the matter with your thinking.”
Stephens also advised that protestors be wary of the backlash their actions might elicit, drawing a historical comparison to student politics in the Weimar Republic. “When the left in Germany trashed universities in the 1920s, it paved the way for the most extreme right. Be careful that through radicalism, you don’t invite a form of reaction that will be much more terrifying.” He cautioned that the movement for Palestinian freedom could lead to “handing all of our enemies a golden political opportunity.”
Already in response to pro-Palestine protests, the Trump administration has frozen upwards of $11 billion in university federal funding. Stephens took a strong stance against these funding cuts, seeing them as “bald attacks on university life” rather than genuine attempts to curb anti-semitism. “I think that many universities are broken institutions, but the place to fix them is within the university, not with the heavy hammer of withholding federal funds.”
During the Q&A section of the event, an audience member asked Stephens to define the boundaries of appropriate speech about Israel. Stephens responded that, except for pre-established First Amendment restrictions, “all speech about Israel is permissible.” He shared that he has no problem with chants which paint Israel as a genocidal state, as long as he is able to respond. “I have a right to call it anti-semitic,” Stephens said. “It doesn’t mean I’m censoring that speech. I am making an effort to describe that speech as I see it.”
The columnist expressed that it is acceptable to find fault with Israel on the basis of policy, but he voiced his concern about more extreme beliefs. “What I’m worried about is that there is a strain on the left that no longer sees Israel as mistaken on policy [but] sees Israel as fundamentally illegitimate as a state.”
Despite his criticisms of leftist activism, Stephens noted that his speaking engagements have more often been cancelled by far-right groups that reject his support of a two-state solution than far-left ones.
Marisa Hirschfield ’27 studies History and Creative Writing and is a PFS Writing Fellow.
City Journal
Excerpt:
Princeton University, like all Ivy League schools, has sunk more deeply into administrative activism over recent years. The school maintains a robust Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy, with more than six DEI employees per 1,000 students. The school also displays several other activist commitments that distract it from its educational mission—most notably, Princeton’s decision to intervene in the Students for Fair Admissions case at the Supreme Court in favor of affirmative action.
Elizabeth Hu
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 addressed conflicts between free speech and censorship on college campuses during a discussion at the Princeton Public Library on Monday. He was joined in conversation by Deborah Pearlstein, Director of Princeton’s Program in Law and Public Policy.
He also addressed the difference between censorship and controversy through a reference to Judge Kyle Duncan, who was invited to speak at Stanford Law School in 2023. Duncan’s talk was interrupted by student protesters throughout and was eventually cut short. “That’s real censorship,” Eisgruber said. “It made it impossible for a speaker that some people on campus wanted to hear to be heard, and that should be recognized.”
Rodrigo Menezes
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Recently, Princeton University announced a policy that would require members of eating clubs and co-ops living in University housing to buy a second meal plan, costing about $900 a year. I, along with all the other members of the Graduate Interclub Council (GICC), believe that this policy would be disastrous for Princeton’s undergraduate experience.
