Today, Niall Ferguson refutes the charge of genocide levied against Israel while pointing out that such a crime is ongoing in Ukraine; Peter Berkowitz examines why consensus has broken down among American Jews on Israel and the two-state solution; and Matthew Turpin reviews the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in 2021 to consider the significance of the paradigm shift in trade policy set off by the Trump administration since January.
International Affairs
Writing at the New York Post opinion page, Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson argues that the charge of genocide against Israel for its conduct in Gaza is a “luxury belief,” or one that its proponents “can afford to hold . . . because they are largely sheltered from the consequences” of the idea once put into practice. Ferguson writes that one can “criticize the way Israel has waged this war” and point out inconsistencies in Israel’s war aims. But, he writes, “one cannot call this nasty war genocide,” because the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such” is central to that crime—and Israel has not demonstrated any such intent. Ferguson also points out the unprecedented nature of Israel feeding Gazan civilians during wartime. Meanwhile, says Ferguson, Russian aggression in Ukraine clearly demonstrates genocidal intent, as Vladimir Putin’s forces commit acts central to the UN definition of genocide. Read more here.
In his weekly column for RealClearPolitics, Senior Fellow Peter Berkowitz responds to an essay from New York Times columnist Ezra Klein assessing the breakdown of a long-standing consensus among American Jews on Israel, anti-Zionism, and the two-state solution. In Berkowitz’s view, “Klein reports sympathetically the opinions of progressives appalled by Israel, while misreporting, or not reporting at all, the views of Israel’s conservative supporters.” Berkowitz also critiques the argument that Israel is an illiberal theocracy without protections for individual rights; he points out that Israel’s Declaration of Independence contains a foundational commitment for the Jewish majority to work with Arab Israelis “to build the country ‘on the basis of full and equal citizenship.’” Berkowitz acknowledges that “Israel must work to improve the economic well-being and participation in civic life of its Arab minority” but maintains that these citizens are fully enfranchised as “full and equal citizens.” Read more here.
Confronting and Competing with China
“Four years ago this weekend, the peril facing Afghanistan (and the United States) was hiding just beneath the surface as the Biden Administration seemed to be hitting its stride,” begins Visiting Fellow Matthew Turpin in his weekly China Articles newsletter. Turpin recounts how the disastrous American exit from Afghanistan “destroyed the confidence of American citizens in their national security professionals” and marked the end of the Biden administration’s net favorable approval rating. Turpin turns to an analysis of the Trump team’s geopolitical strategy over the course of 2025 so far and points out that policies intended to “isolate [China]” and “apply significant pressure on allies to carry their own defense burden AND re-negotiate their economic relationships to benefit the United States” have resulted in a multitude of economic policy impacts on US consumers and businesses. As Turpin writes, “It remains to be seen how this will play out.” Read more here.
Energy and the Environment
In a policy brief accompanying a new paper at Nature Energy, Senior Fellow Arun Majumdar and coauthors argue that a “majority of US households can reduce energy costs and access affordable backup power during outages through rooftop solar and battery storage.” Stressing that solar battery systems aren’t just for “early adopters” anymore, the authors urge policymakers “to evaluate and adopt measures to ensure high-outage-risk and energy-burdened communities have equitable access to these adaptation solutions as climate impacts intensify outages.” Majumdar and colleagues note that policies like net billing of grid-connected home solar systems may not be scalable beyond early adopter states including California. However, the brief says that policy incentives to adopt solar and battery home energy systems “should target high-outage areas where current solar–battery backup benefits tend to be low,” in order to address “the misalignment between system viability and household needs.” Read more here.
Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
In a post for VoxEU, Senior Fellow and Director of Research Steven J. Davis and coauthors assess how businesses respond to macroeconomic shocks and why some firms weather such shocks better than others. Using data from 67 “jump” days in the US stock market between 2020 and 2022 and information from corporate filings, the authors show that observable business characteristics can explain the measurable differences between firm outcomes following macroeconomic shocks. This research highlights that traditional metrics like industry and firm size only partially account for variations in performance, suggesting that policymakers could tailor their responses to different types of economic shocks to address uneven impacts on different firms. Read more here.
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