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How should Israelis think about the security and defense of the Jewish State when confronted with Palestinian claims to national sovereignty? What effect will Israel’s material prosperity have on the prospects for peace?  What role does honor and dignity, hadar, play in the statecraft of the Middle East?

Orator, statesman, writer, and political leader, Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky is one of the principal figures in the Zionist founding. In this podcast, journalist and author Yossi Klein Halevi joins Tikvah’s Jonathan Silver to discuss a pair of Jabotinsky essays from the 1920s. “The Iron Wall,” and “Ethics of the Iron Wall” develop a security doctrine for the future Jewish State that is grounded in a realistic assessment of the human condition, and a sober analysis of national aspirations. Halevi and Silver discuss Zionist thought and history, as well as the echoes of Jabotinsky that can be heard in Israeli politics today.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble, as well as Ich Grolle Nicht, by Ron Meixsell and Wahneta Meixsell.

Past podcasts:

• Tevi Troy on the Politics of Tu B’Shvat
• Jay Lefkowitz & Mitchell Rocklin on the Jewish Vote
• Yuval Levin on the Long Way to Liberty
• Ruth Wisse on Sartre and Anti-Semitism
• Edward Rothstein on Jerusalem Syndrome at the Met
• Matthew Continetti on Irving Kristol’s Theological Politics
• Meir Soloveichik on King David
• R.R. Reno on “Faith in the Flesh”
• Arthur Herman on Why Everybody Loves Israel
• Meir Soloveichik on Rembrandt, Tolkien, and the Jews
• Yoram Hazony on Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom
• Jason Bedrick on Jewish Day Schools and School Choice
• Allan Arkush on Ahad Ha’am and “The Jewish State and Jewish Problem”
• Bret Stephens on the Legacy of 1967 and the U.S.-Israel Relationship
• Jay Lefkowitz on Social Orthodoxy
• Norman Podhoretz on Jerusalem and Jewish Particularity
• Michael Doran on Western Elites and the Middle East
• Ruth Wisse on Campus Anti-Semitism
• Meir Soloveichik on “Confrontation”
• Yuval Levin on Religious Liberty
• Elliott Abrams on American Jews and Israel