When I arrived in Egypt as The New York Times' Cairo Bureau Chief in the early 1980's, I never imagined that I would be spending so much time in Israel.

I had barely unpacked when I found myself on a plane to Tel Aviv, not to cover a story in Israel, but the 1983 suicide truck bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut, a terrorist attack that had killed 241 unsuspecting U.S. servicemen as they slept in their barracks.

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By some estimates, the American Jewish community is currently spending some $600 million a year to combat Jew hatred. Now, a new play on Broadway seems destined to further enflame passions, spark alarm, and raise questions about what motivates the antisemitic surge—as well as debate how Americans, and intellectuals, in particular, should respond to it.

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In late January, I had lunch at Le Rive, a tony, wood-beamed restaurant whose tall windows offered a stunning view of Lake Geneva and its snow-capped mountains. The room buzzed with the sound of diners speaking softly in French and German and the clinking of crystal glassware. The tables were covered with heavy, white linen cloths, perfectly pressed. The lake's soft, silvery light filled the immaculate room.

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In Tehran back in the spring of 1992, I interviewed Ali Akbar Mohtashami, the hardline cleric who cofounded Hezbollah in Lebanon and helped carry out the devastating suicide car-bomb attacks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. Marines in 1983. I recalled his pride in Iran's attacks and his vow to continue them until Israel was destroyed, its Jews "sent back to the countries they came from," and Iran had built its own nuclear bombs. As long as Israel existed and there were revolutionaries in Tehran, he told me, there would be "no Americans in Iran and no peace with America."

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For years, Donald Trump has been among the most vociferous critics of cancel culture, saying it has "absolutely no place in the United States of America." Perhaps not. But it seems to have found a place in his home town of Palm Beach and the self-described "free state of Florida" where, as Governor Ron De Santis memorably proclaimed, "woke goes to die."

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