Editorials from New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and others

Editorials from New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and others

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March 13 – The Washington Post on Gaza plan from Arab leaders

Arab countries, along with most of the rest of the world, rightly condemned President Donald Trump's fantastical proposal to take over Gaza, permanently displace more than 2 million Palestinians and turn the war-battered enclave into a gaudy riviera on the Mediterranean Sea. Trump doubled down on the idea with an artificial intelligence-generated video of a future Gaza with palm trees, bearded belly dancers and a golden statue of ... Trump.

His head-scratching proposal put the onus on Arab and Palestinian leaders to come up with an alternative vision for Gaza's "day after," and they have done just that. Arab League leaders meeting in Cairo last week endorsed a realistic plan put forward by Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi for a multiyear reconstruction of Gaza that would leave Palestinian residents in their homeland and commit the wealthy Arab countries to paying most of the rebuilding costs.

France, Germany, Italy and Britain, as well as China and the 57 Muslim countries represented in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, quickly backed the Arab plan. Predictably, Israel and the Trump administration rejected it. This is a shame, because the Arab plan - though incomplete and vague on key details, including the future role of Hamas's military wing in Gaza - offers many sensible, workable ideas. It provides a useful starting point for talks on Gaza's future and a clear road map for reconstruction, and attaches a price tag. It deserves serious consideration in the United States and Israel.

The Arab plan envisions a rebuilding effort in three phases. The first, projected to last six months, would focus on clearing Gaza of rubble and unexploded ordnance, building 200,000 temporary homes for more than 1 million people and repairing about 60,000 salvageable buildings. This is estimated to cost $3 billion.

During the second phase, lasting up to three years, some 400,000 permanent houses would be built; running water, electricity and telecommunications would be restored; and Gaza's seaport and its long-shuttered international airport would be rebuilt. Estimated cost: $20 billion.

The third phase, costing $30 billion over 2½ years, would see housing completed for the entire population, construction of an industrial zone and new commercial ports built. The total price tag for the three phases is $53 billion.

The plan calls for establishing a fund to manage the investments. In the initial phase, Gaza would be administered by a committee of independent Palestinian technocrats. This panel would report to a reformed Palestinian Authority, which already administers the Palestinian-controlled territories in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Provision is made for a U.N. peacekeeping force, but there's no detail as to which countries might provide troops. Egypt and Jordan also have promised to train Palestinian police who would keep order during the reconstruction process.

Hamas - the terrorist organization that launched the horrific Oct. 7, 2023, attack that killed about 1,200 Israelis and precipitated the present crisis - holds sway in Gaza and has in the past said it is willing to relinquish its governing role and accept a committee of technocrats. But Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are bitter rivals who in 2007 waged a bloody internecine battle for Gaza that left Hamas in control of the enclave. The worry is that Hamas, along with Gaza's citizens, might not welcome the Palestinian Authority.

The biggest hole in the Arab plan is what to do about Hamas's military wing. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the hard-liners in his ruling coalition say the war must continue until Hamas is totally eradicated as a fighting force - a goal that most analysts, and even some Israeli military officials, call unrealistic. Hamas has called disarming its military wing a " red line."

Netanyahu has also emphatically rejected any role for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. Some Israeli hawks have even talked openly of reoccupying or annexing the enclave. Netanyahu and many Israelis also oppose the idea of one day recognizing an independent Palestinian state, and this is also part of the Arab plan. To say the least, the plan would need discussion and revision before it could be accepted and enacted.

But this is a perilous moment for Gaza. A six-week ceasefire has ended, and Israel and Hamas remain locked in a stalemate over whether and how to extend it. Netanyahu seems ready to resume the war, and Israel has cut off all humanitarian assistance and electricity to Gaza - adding further hardship to the suffering population. An immediate extension of the ceasefire is needed, followed by tough negotiations over Gaza's postwar future. The Arab plan offers a starting point. And, at the moment, it's the only rational option on the table.

ONLINE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/03/13/gaza-israel-hamas-arab-plan-reconstruction/

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March 15 – The New York Times on higher education and authoritarianism

When a political leader wants to move a democracy toward a more authoritarian form of government, he often sets out to undermine independent sources of information and accountability. The leader tries to delegitimize judges, sideline autonomous government agencies and muzzle the media. President Vladimir Putin of Russia has done so over the past quarter-century. To lesser degrees, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey recently have as well.

The weakening of higher education tends to be an important part of this strategy. Academic researchers are supposed to pursue the truth, and budding autocrats recognize that empirical truth can present a threat to their authority. "Wars are won by teachers," Mr. Putin has said. He and Mr. Erdogan have closed universities. Mr. Modi's government has arrested dissident scholars, and Mr. Orban has appointed loyal foundations to run universities.

President Trump has not yet gone as far to impede democracy as these other leaders, but it would be naïve to ignore his early moves to mimic their approach. He has fired government watchdogs, military leaders, prosecutors and national security experts. He has sued media organizations, and his administration has threatened to regulate others. He has suggested that judges are powerless to check his authority, writing on social media, "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."

Mr. Trump's multifaceted campaign against higher education is core to this effort to weaken institutions that do not parrot his version of reality. Above all, he is enacting or considering major cuts to universities' resources. The Trump administration has announced sharp reductions in the federal payments that cover the overhead costs of scientific research, such as laboratory rent, electricity and hazardous waste disposal. (A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order against those cuts.) Vice President JD Vance and other Republicans have urged a steep increase of a university endowment tax that Mr. Trump signed during his first term. Together, these two policies could reduce the annual budgets at some research universities by more than 10 percent.

Mr. Trump is squeezing higher education in other ways too. The Education Department let go of about half its work force, potentially making it harder for students to receive financial aid. The virtual elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development led to the cancellation of $800 million in grants to Johns Hopkins alone. On March 7, the administration targeted a single university, announcing that it would end $400 million in grants to Columbia as punishment for its insufficient response to campus antisemitism.

We understand why many Americans don't trust higher education and feel they have little stake in it. Elite universities can come off as privileged playgrounds for young people seeking advantages only for themselves. Less elite schools, including community colleges, often have high dropout rates, leaving their students with the onerous combination of debt and no degree. Throughout higher education, faculty members can seem out of touch, with political views that skew far to the left.

Mr. Trump and his advisers are tapping into public dissatisfaction with real problems at universities. But as is the case with their approach to trade, government waste, immigration policy and European military spending, many of their would-be solutions will not solve the underlying problems or will create new ones. The American higher education system, for all its flaws, is the envy of the world, and it now faces a financial squeeze that threatens its many strengths - strengths that benefit all Americans.

Chief among them is its global leadership in medical care and scientific research. American professors still dominate the Nobel Prizes. When wealthy and powerful people in other countries face a medical crisis, they often use their connections to get an appointment at an American academic hospital. For that matter, some of the same Republicans targeting universities with budget cuts seek out its top medical specialists when they or their relatives are ill.

American leadership in medical and scientific research depends on federal money. Private companies, even large ones, typically do not conduct much of the basic research that leads to breakthroughs because it is too uncertain; even successful experiments may not lead to profitable products for decades. Mr. Trump's planned funding cuts are large enough to force universities to do less of this research. The list of potential forgone progress is long, including against cancer, heart disease, viruses, obesity, dementia and drug overdoses. And there will be costs beyond the medical sector. There is a reason that Silicon Valley sprang up next to a research university.

The nonfinancial parts of the administration's campaign against higher education are also alarming. Last weekend, immigration officers arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia who holds a green card and is married to an American citizen. The government has offered no evidence that he broke the law. Even many legal scholars who reject his views on Israel and Hamas consider his arrest to be a dangerous violation of free speech principles, and we share this concern. Mr. Trump described Mr. Khalil's detention as "the first arrest of many to come," a sign that the president wants to chill speech among the many immigrants on university campuses.

What is the most effective response to Mr. Trump's campaign against universities? For people outside higher education, this is a moment to speak publicly about why universities matter. They promote public health, economic growth and national security. They are the largest employers in some regions. They are an unmatched, if imperfect, engine of upward mobility that can alter the trajectory of entire families.

For people in higher education, this is a moment both to be bolder about trumpeting its strengths and to be more reflective about addressing its weaknesses. About those shortcomings: Too many professors and university administrators acted in recent years as liberal ideologues rather than seekers of empirical truth. Academics have tried to silence debate on legitimate questions, including about Covid lockdowns, gender transition treatments and diversity, equity and inclusion. A Harvard University survey last year found that only 33 percent of graduating seniors felt comfortable expressing their opinions about controversial topics, with moderate and conservative students being the most worried about ostracization.

"The insularity of American academia is appalling," said Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University. "It has led to massive resentment against intellectual elites." This insularity does not justify Mr. Trump's policies, but it does help explain the dearth of conservatives defending universities today. Universities will be in a stronger long-term position if they recommit themselves to open debate.

As for trumpeting the sector's strengths, the leaders of American higher education have been largely timid and quiet in the face of the Trump onslaught. "The people who are attacking higher education are talking nonstop," said Holden Thorp, a chemist and former university administrator who runs the Science family of journals. "And the people leading higher education are not saying very much." (Mr. Roth, a frequent critic of the administration, is an exception.) University presidents seem to be hoping that if they keep their heads down, the threat will pass - or at least pass by their campuses. They are unlikely to be so fortunate.

In Mr. Trump's first term, administrators and professors sometimes made the opposite mistake and commented on political issues about which they had little expertise. College presidents do not need to become pundits. But they do need to defend the core mission of their institutions when it is under attack. University leaders would help themselves, and the country, by emerging from their defensive crouches and making a forthright case for inquiry, research, science and knowledge.

ONLINE: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/15/opinion/trump-research-cuts.html

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March 16 – The Wall Street Journal on Trump and the Houthis

One of the Biden Administration's worst failures was letting Iran's terror proxies in Yemen shut down a crucial global shipping lane and shoot at the U.S. military with impunity. President Trump sent a better message on the weekend by ordering significant air strikes against the Houthis that are a step toward restoring deterrence in the region.

Mr. Trump on Saturday announced on his Truth Social site "decisive and powerful" military action against the Houthis in Yemen. Its attacks "on American vessels will not be tolerated. We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective," Mr. Trump wrote. To "all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY."

The Houthis had paid little price for more than a year of piracy that forced the U.S. Navy into a combat pace not seen since World War II. The White House tallies 174 Houthi attacks on U.S. warships and 145 on commercial vessels since 2023. One think-tank analyst estimated recently that the U.S. Navy fired more air-defense missiles in those 15 months than it had in the previous 30 years. That means expensive missiles shooting down cheap drones.

The Houthis took a short vacation from lobbing missiles and drones at commercial vessels amid cease-fire talks over Gaza, but they have been threatening to renew their attacks. Press reports say the terrorists late last month fired a surface-to-air missile at a U.S. F-16, and a U.S drone disappeared around the time the Houthis took credit for taking down a drone two weeks ago.

Mr. Trump often talks tougher than he acts, so it's important to see if this is the start of a larger campaign to target Houthi leaders and eliminate the group's weapons stores and Iranian supply lines. Among his other mistakes, President Biden settled for de minimis retaliatory strikes that let the Houthis conclude they had little to fear. Michael Waltz, White House national security adviser, said Sunday on ABC News that the U.S. strikes targeted "multiple Houthi leaders and took them out."

Notably, Mr. Trump also included Iran in his Truth Social warning to the Houthis. "To Iran: Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY! Do NOT threaten the American People . . . or Worldwide shipping lanes. If you do, BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable."

This is significant because the Houthis like to claim that they are independent from Iran. But Tehran is their main arms supplier. The Houthis wouldn't be nearly as large a threat without that help.

Linking Iran with the Houthis is also significant in the context of Mr. Trump's desire to open nuclear talks with Tehran. It shows the President understands the regional threat that Iran represents, especially if it obtains a nuclear weapon. Barack Obama's 2015 nuclear deal handed Iran the money and oil sales to finance weapons transfers to the Houthis and other terror groups. Mr. Trump's renewed maximum pressure campaign is intended to cut off Iran's revenue for that financing.

Deterring the Houthi attacks is crucial to restoring the freedom of global commerce. They have all but shut down the Red Sea route between Europe and Asia for ships that aren't Russian, Chinese or Iranian. The cost of shipping and insurance have soared. It's encouraging that, at least in this case, Mr. Trump believes in American global leadership.

ONLINE: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-takes-on-the-houthis-red-sea-iran-air-strike-yemen-combat-shipping-8db0ab9b?mod=editorials_article_pos4

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March 13 – The Guardian says a resolution in Ukraine appears distant

A three-year conflict has taken bewildering, lurching turns in under a fortnight. Less than two weeks after Donald Trump berated Volodymyr Zelenskyy, ejected him from the White House and cut off Ukraine's support, he U-turned to threaten financial measures "that would be very bad for Russia" if it did not reach a deal with Kyiv. Ukraine's acceptance of a 30-day ceasefire proposal, building on its own suggestion of a halt in air and maritime conflict, threw the onus on Moscow. On Thursday, Vladimir Putin claimed to support the idea in theory - but warned of "serious issues" to address.

Ukraine's agreement prompted the resumption of US intelligence sharing and military aid, which may well have been Kyiv's primary aim. Mr Trump would like to take the credit - and perhaps aspires to a Nobel prize - for a peace deal. Mr Trump, who was hosting Nato's secretary general, Mark Rutte, described the Russian president's remarks as "very promising" albeit not "complete". Even if he outsources the patience and focus required to reach an agreement, it is clear that he has no interest in the injustice or illegality of the invasion, that his sympathies lie with Mr Putin, and that he bears a deep grudge against Mr Zelenskyy.

Fundamentally, Moscow can be more confident of its position than it was even a month ago. The west has been shown to be fundamentally divided and therefore weakened. On the battlefield, Russia also believes itself to have the upper hand, however painful its progress has been. It does not want to give Ukraine the chance to regroup. Speaking ahead of a meeting with the US envoy, Steve Witkoff, Mr Putin was too canny to dismiss Mr Trump's plans outright. There will always be ways to defer a deal, or sabotage it later.

The bigger issue is not its short-term hope of taking more territory, but its long-term, maximalist ambition to control Ukraine. Mr Putin remarked that a ceasefire should "remove the root causes of this crisis": among other things, he wants its demilitarisation and assurances that it won't join Nato. ("They discuss Nato, and being in Nato, and everybody knows what the answer to that is," Mr Trump remarked.) Mr Putin certainly does not want troops from Nato countries there. But without them, Ukraine has no reason to believe that a halt on Russia's part would be any more than a tactical measure. This is why, as Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday, "It has to be a peace where the deal is defended."

Provisional halts in combat can lead to lasting peace; no treaty was signed to end the Korean war. And Mr Putin could yet see genuine advantages to a diplomatic route, especially if it involves early relaxation of sanctions. Russia is expert at interference operations and would surely see opportunities in a post-war Ukraine, with the option to return to warfare always available further down the track.

The zigzags of recent days may materially affect the outcome of this conflict. The halting of aid and intelligence facilitated Russia taking back territory that Ukraine had seized in Kursk. Its resumption will allow Ukraine to fight better for longer. But the overall trajectory is still clear, and it leads away from US support for Ukraine and Europe. It is not unthinkable that Mr Trump might attempt to punish European nations for supplying arms to Kyiv in due course. Whether he is willing to exert real pressure on Mr Putin will shortly become clear. But neither Ukraine nor its friends can expect it.

ONLINE: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/13/the-guardian-view-on-trump-and-ukraine-respite-is-possible-but-resolution-looks-distant

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March 14 – The Boston Globe says Khalil’s detention is a threat to us all

A federal judge has for now halted efforts by the Trump administration to swiftly deport activist Mahmoud Khalil, a legal US resident who was a key figure in anti-Israel demonstrations at Columbia University.

Khalil was detained by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in his university-owned New York City apartment Saturday night, reportedly on orders that came directly from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Before Khalil had a hearing, he was held at a detention center in New Jersey before being transferred to a facility in Louisiana, over 1,000 miles away from his home.

It's important to note that Khalil has not been charged with any crimes. While some of the protests at Columbia turned violent and resulted in arrests, he has not been arrested.

Still, the Trump administration believes the Khalil violated a rule for green-card holders, which says that membership, support, or association with a known terrorist group is grounds for revoking a person's green card. The administration asserts that Khalil's activities amount to support of Hamas, the brutal terror group behind the horrific massacre of Israelis and other nationals in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Citing that rule, the administration was able to take Khalil into without due process, detain him, and threaten him with deportation.

But just because they seemingly can detain Khalil does not mean that the administration should, or that courts shouldn't look skeptically on their use of that authority in this case. Contorting immigration law in this manner, to punish what appears to be peaceful speech, raises serious legal and Constitutional questions. And it is frankly un-American for the federal government to simply brand someone a terrorist supporter without due process - a real opportunity for him to hear and try to rebut the allegations against him.

All people in the United States, regardless of citizenship or immigration status, have First Amendment protections. A core purpose of that constitutional right is to protect the ability of anyone in the country to speak openly and freely, to assemble, and to urge the government to redress actions that the speakers believe are unfair - all without fear of retribution. It embodies the principle at the heart of a quote written in a biography about philosopher Voltaire to sum up his thoughts on freedom of speech: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

That Rubio ordered Khalil's detainment, and President Trump posted on social media that Khalil's was the " first arrest of many to come," strongly evidences the administration's complete disregard for Khalil's and every American's constitutional rights.

The Constitution also requires that anyone facing a legal action that can deny them of liberty or property be given due process - meaning a fair opportunity to have their case heard and the ability to plead and prove their innocence or lodge other defenses. That this was denied is also constitutionally suspect.

Khalil denies he was ever engaged in terroristic activities, arguing through his lawyers in court Wednesday that he was engaged in "peaceful, constitutionally protected activism."

Let's be clear: Regardless of anyone's views of Khalil's role in the protests at Columbia or his public statements, he is not the shoe bomber. But even convicted terrorist Richard Reid, the British national who tried to detonate a bomb hidden in his sneakers during a Miami-bound flight from Paris in 2001, was given due process.

Khalil has not been charged, let alone convicted, of any crime. Yet it took days after his arrest for any hearing to take place - and it first required detective work on behalf of his family and legal team to find out where he was being held. This kind of "disappearing" action by the federal government is the kind of thing one is used to seeing play out in countries like Russia, not on US soil.

Nor does that single hearing - which was only intended to determine whether the government could go ahead with deporting him - amount to the full due process that he should receive on the underlying accusations against him.

If the government has a case for removing Khalil, let it make it in court. But in the meantime, judges and federal officials must mind the Constitution and the law. If the government is allowed to operate so clearly outside of the normal procedures that the law and Constitution prescribe in Khalil's case, no one is safe from similar treatment.

ONLINE: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/03/14/opinion/khalils-detention-is-threat-us-all/