Transcript
Abe Greenwald (0:04)
Hope for the best, expect the worst.
Matthew Kahn (0:10)
Some preach and pain Some die of.
Abe Greenwald (0:13)
Thirst the way of knowing which way.
Noah Rothman (0:17)
It'S going Hope for the best Expect.
John Podhoretz (0:21)
The worst, hope for the best welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily Podcast. Today is Thursday, May 22, 2025. I'm John Pothoris, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
Unnamed Speaker (0:36)
Hi, John.
John Podhoretz (0:37)
Washington, Commentary columnist Matthew Kahn. Nettie hi Matt.
Abe Greenwald (0:40)
Hi, John.
John Podhoretz (0:41)
And joining us this morning, our old colleague, National Reviews, Noah Rothman. Welcome back, Noah.
Noah Rothman (0:47)
Hi John.
John Podhoretz (0:48)
Let me tell you a story about a 17 year old girl in Prairie Village, Kansas, attending the Shawnee Mission East High School, coming to school one day in 2017 to find Nazi graffiti sprayed all over the campus. And according to a local news channel I dug up last night, she saw the graffiti of swastikas and vulgar words and she said to the reporter, it's so ignorant that you would bring up a symbol like that that would bring so much pain to people. It's not okay. You know, I worry about going to my synagogue and now I have to worry about safety at my school and that shouldn't be a thing. Move forward a few years in her timeline of her life and the same 17 year old ends up going to American University to get a Master's degree in International Studies and gets an additional master's degree in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development from the United Nations University of Peace. Didn't know that such a thing existed. On her LinkedIn page after her MAS, she wrote, My passion lies at the intersection of peace building, religious engagement and environmental work. While working with Tech to Peace in Tel Aviv, Israel, I conducted comprehensive research on peacebuilding theory emphasizing grassroots initiatives in the Israeli Palestinian region. My my diverse experiences, including facilitating insightful discussions on geopolitics in Israel and Palestine as a Jewish educator, and researching an array of environmental topics in India and Central America, reflect my commitment to fostering understanding between different peoples. This was Sarah Milgram, and last night she was shot to death outside the Capital Jewish Museum. She was working at the Israeli Embassy with her boyfriend and apparently soon to be fiance, Jerome Liszitski, and they were both shot multiple times by one Elias Gonzalez, himself a Midwesterner from Chicago who apparently was a figure in what is called the Party of Socialism and Liberation. I bring this up only to say that Sarah Milgram was a deeply idealistic person who believed that peace was possible between Israel and Palestine and the Palestinians and wished to facilitate this in some manner. And this is how she conducted her life. She felt she felt this way probably in part because of the swastikas being painted at her high school, and that this was something that, you know, there needed to be an answer to make sure that such horrors did not happen again. She dedicated her life to it. She went to work at the Israeli Embassy to do work that she could help with, fell in love with Yaron Lifcitzki, who is himself an interesting story, and was murdered nonetheless, despite her deep commitment to peace. What does this remind us of? Or what does it remind me of? It reminds me of so many of the people in the three kibbutzim that were hit on October 7, peace activists, leftists, seeking so much, seeking reconciliation and common understanding with the Palestinians in Gaza, that they employed them. And that in the case of at least one of those who was employed at. At Kvaraza, I believe, or Bari, one of the two drew plans, was there, worked with them, was a friend to them, and then he drew plans to provide a map for Hamas to know how to get in and what to do and where the safety points were and how to get the storehouse of guns and seize it so that they could go through and kill as many people as possible. So this is where we are with a terrorist attack on American soil last night at 10:45, about half a mile from the nation's capital and across the street from the FBI field office in Washington, D.C. this is where we are now.
