The Free Press

One of the many disturbing things about Hamas’s attacks on Israel on October 7 was how little time it took for the events of that day not just to be defended, but also to be disputed and diminished.

That’s why establishing and preserving the facts about what happened that day is so important. This week, historian, Churchill biographer, and member of the British House of Lords Andrew Roberts published a meticulous report designed to do exactly that. He writes in his foreword that “as a Gentile, I believe that it is vital to prevent the emergence of another, more modern version of Holocaust denial, namely 7 October denial. After the Holocaust, non-Jews like me owe the Jewish people nothing less. This can only be done by the kind of facts-based, evidential work in this report.”

The publication is a reminder of how the world changed on October 7—and how the event opened up a dark new chapter of antisemitism around the world. It’s also a lesson in the importance, in a world of mistruths, of stating plainly what happened. That’s what we’re aiming to do with this newsletter.

In the week since an attempted deadly attack on Jewish children in Michigan was stopped by synagogue security, we’ve seen the world react with concern and then indifference. The attackers’ actions were justified by some, downplayed by others, and quickly brushed over.

Threats to Jewish life take many forms. It can be violence or vandalism or abuse shouted in the street; but it can also be more insidious or subtle, the slow pushing of Jews out of mainstream spaces.

This week has seen both, and a rising climate of fear, especially in Europe, where the military in Belgium and Italy have been dispatched to protect Jewish sites, and a new survey revealed widespread antisemitic attitudes among British students.

—The Editors

A Jewish Synagogue and School in the Netherlands, One Day Apart

On March 14, two suspects bombed the Cheider Orthodox Jewish school in Amsterdam with police releasing surveillance footage of the pair this week. The attack came just one day after four teenagers torched a synagogue in Rotterdam, whom prosecutors have since formally charged with terrorism, saying the attacks were designed to “instill serious fear” in the Jewish community.

Hello, and welcome back to our very serious news summary.

My only announcement this week is to keep submitting questions for Abigail Shrier’s brilliant advice column.

→ Joe Kent joins the new right circuit: The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who was confirmed last July, resigned this week over the war in Iran, writing that the only reason it started is because of Israel “and its powerful American lobby.” He quickly scheduled an appearance alongside Candace Owens and showed up on Tucker Carlson’s pod. The new circuit. Now, of course, “four people with direct knowledge of the investigation” have leaked that Joe Kent has been under FBI investigation for allegedly sharing classified information. A theme of Kent’s letter and chat with Tuck-Tuck is the idea that Israel is behind everything, that no other group has agency. Kent writes that he is a “Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel.” But his wife was killed in a 2019 suicide bombing in Syria, for which ISIS claimed responsibility? He writes that the Israelis drew us into “the disastrous Iraq war.” But Israel was against that war and expressed concern to America about its possible consequences. Even Grok, the one AI that you know could get Nazi-licious if it wanted to, agrees with me. (I’ll be real here, the name Grok sounds like a guy who maybe used to be a skinhead. Oh, him? That’s just Grok, don’t ask about the tattoos, okay, he’s over all that.)

You see the same obsession echoed here: “Pakistan dropping bombs on Afghanistan is completely unacceptable. And we can only conclude that the Pakistan military has been compromised by the U.S., and therefore Israel,” writes the editor of a Muslim news website. Actually loads of popular writers are echoing that, claiming Pakistan is attacking Afghanistan because it’s been inspired by Israel or something. Anything that happens anywhere between any two groups of people can be described by its proximity to Israel. Which one is Israel-coded? Why is it Pakistan?

It’s a scenario that has played out repeatedly for decades in the Senate: A narrow majority, intent on getting its way on legislation it prioritizes, is held back by the filibuster, and threatens to break it and change Senate rules, but proves unable to do so. It happened over tax reform in the George W. Bush years, the Affordable Care Act’s “public option” in the Barack Obama years, election reform and abortion in the Joe Biden years, and now a voter-ID law that President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans would like to advance.

Each time, a key part of the argument that the Senate majority makes to itself is that the other party will surely blow up the filibuster when it next gets a chance, so refusing to do it now would be a kind of unilateral disarmament. Yet in each case, at least so far, that other party has not pulled the trigger when its own time in the majority came.

Arthur Brooks has spent a lifetime studying how to be happier—and since the beginning of this year, he’s been sharing all the lessons he’s learned along the way with readers of The Free Press. Each week, he writes about all the questions that actually matter: how to live well, work well, age well, and find purpose in a world where all these things are getting harder with each passing day.

It’s the kind of writing that makes you put down your phone and think—which, given how long we all stare at our screens every day, is no small thing. And now Arthur’s taken it a step further: His new book, The Meaning of Your Life, hits shelves on March 31. It doesn’t just explore the modern crisis of unhappiness—it tells us what to do about it.

That begins with identifying who is truly suffering—and why. In the exclusive excerpt below, Brooks turns to an unexpected group: our young strivers, whose lives appear to be going right in every visible way. And yet, they are more depressed, distracted, aimless, and bored than ever before. Why are the future leaders of our society the most unhappy? And what, exactly, will it take to change course? —The Editors

It’s no secret that we are living at a time of profound unhappiness. According to the General Social Survey, the percentage of American adults of all ages who are “not too happy” about their lives more than doubled from 2000 to 2024. Young adults were hit especially hard: The percentage of American adolescents with symptoms of major depression nearly tripled from 2005 to 2019, while anxiety almost doubled.

But here’s the really weird part: The ones suffering most are not just the down-and-out types—the addicts, the impoverished, the failsons. Those for whom there are obvious things gone wrong in their lives. On the contrary, it is also those who seem to have everything going right for them—in other words, our young and most successful strivers.

I’ve spent my life surrounded by that very group. As a longtime college professor, I have been privileged to teach hundreds of wonderful students—ambitious strivers just starting out on what promised to be terrific careers and lives. I have met countless young people who were so inspired by ideas, so purpose-driven, and so enthusiastic.

But in 2009, I left academia to run a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. And when I returned to campus a decade later, the atmosphere was dark. Larger and larger percentages of students were suffering from depression and anxiety. At some schools, more than half of students were receiving mental health treatment. My office hours were more like counseling sessions than tutoring. Hope and optimism had been replaced by anger and sadness.

Me on Broadway. Not a phrase that immediately comes to mind, and certainly not one that occurred to me in 1983 when I’d just started my career as a journalist at The New Statesman. But I feature, or at least my voice does, large and significantly in the play Giant, starring John Lithgow, that has now transferred from London to New York.

The reason is that back when I started at the Statesman, just out of university and somewhat in awe of pretty much everything, I was asked to interview children’s author Roald Dahl. He’d written about a book called God Cried, concerning Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and what was supposed to be a review turned into an antisemitic scream. Dahl wrote of “a race of people” who had “switched so rapidly from being much-pitied victims to barbarous murderers,” and that Washington was “so utterly dominated by the great Jewish financial institutions” that the Americans “dare not defy” Israel.

Dear Abigail,

I am lucky to have a mother and father who have been active and loving parents throughout my life. They were not the type of parents to “phone it in.” They cheered for us on the sidelines at our sporting events, attended our plays and performances, and appreciated us as individuals.

The one struggle I’ve had is that my mother seems incapable of accepting my sexuality as a gay man. I came out over a decade ago, and while it was a bumpy ride at first, it felt like we had made progress in the last few years. However, when I shared with her that I want to have a family one day with my current partner, she told me that she didn’t believe two men could raise children.

This is despite the fact that I make a great living, have a committed relationship with my partner, and am eager to be a dedicated and loving parent to my future children. She’s also expressed several times that she longs to be a grandmother, so it felt particularly painful to realize that she doesn’t want grandchildren from me. When I try to address her resistance, she invokes her faith as the reason for her struggle.

I know having two dads is different from a dad and a mom, but I’m confident in the life I could provide for my future children. And while I want my children to have a close relationship with their grandparents, it’s hard to imagine that will be possible if my parents don’t even believe in my ability to raise kids. What do I do?

—Chase, 30, Philadelphia

Chase,

At the heart of your letter, unmissable as the pain, is the fact that you are still asking your mother to be thrilled with everything about you. You even ask her to bless your nebulous aspirations to have a family “one day.”

I can feel the response you seem to be seeking from me: Have a conversation with your mother about this. Let her know it hurts you that she doesn’t embrace you fully as a gay man and especially that she doesn’t think two men could make good parents. If she can’t accept you as you truly are, then you can’t have her in your life and the lives of your future kids.

But I’m not going to tell you any of that because adulthood isn’t given, Chase. It’s taken.

At 30, it’s time to take it.

With war raging in the Middle East, we want to bring you as many trusted voices on the news as we can. One such voice is the Israeli journalist Amit Segal. Here’s Amit’s daily newsletter, It’s Noon in Israel, which we’re pleased to publish in The Free Press.

While military commentators focus on flight paths and interception systems, historians will likely define the current campaign against Iran in entirely different terms: the first global energy war. This is not a war over territory, but over the ability of the West—and especially the Far East—to continue functioning.

At the center of the arena are oil prices. Any spike in commodity market charts for crude oil quickly translates into drama at gas stations in the United States and Europe. Those who thought natural gas would act as a brake to prevent economic escalation have discovered the opposite: Gas is not moderating prices—it is becoming fuel that intensifies international pressure. This follows Qatar’s decision to halt liquefied natural gas production (LNG) early on in the war, a dramatic move for a country that holds a third of the world’s natural gas reserves.

It’s Thursday, March 19. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Why is Candace Owens speaking at a Catholic gala in the nation’s capital? Konstantin Kisin on what’s gone wrong in Europe. How the Canadian justice system is squashing political expression. And much more.

But first: Are we winning the war in Iran?

It’s been 20 days since the war in Iran began. Casualties are climbing. Oil prices are surging. And the question hanging over everything is getting harder to ignore: Is victory possible—and if so, what would it actually look like?

Today we bring you three voices grappling with that question.

First, Michael Doran examines the mounting pressure on President Trump to bring the war to an end. “Trump undoubtedly wants out,” he writes. “But he also knows that a premature exit leaves the core threat intact.” As a summit with Xi Jinping looms in May, read Michael’s full piece on why Trump can achieve “decisive victory” by dismantling Iran’s missile and drone network—and why anything less would project weakness, embolden China, and leave the global balance more fragile than before.

That “decisive victory” may depend, in part, on Mossad. As Eli Lake reports today, Israel’s national intelligence agency has spent years covertly aiding Iranian opposition groups, hacking infrastructure, and targeting pro-regime militias. While the Iranian people will ultimately determine the regime’s fate, Eli writes, “Israel is evening the odds for a revolution.” Read his full piece below. And don’t miss his latest episode of Breaking History, where he sits down with Andrew Sullivan to debate the political, strategic, and moral stakes of the war.

Finally, Israeli journalist Amit Segal examines Israel’s campaign to systematically eliminate Iran’s top leadership—including the killing of Ali Larijani on Tuesday—and asks a deeper question: Does decapitating the regime bring it closer to collapse, or reveal its resilience? Is this a brittle system that could fall with one more push—or an ideological state built to absorb blow after blow?

—Jillian Lederman

• Israel announced on Wednesday that overnight strikes had killed Iranian intelligence minister Esmail Khatib in Tehran, the third senior Iranian official killed in two days. Israeli strikes also reportedly hit a facility in Iran on the world’s largest natural gas field—the first time Israel has struck one of the country’s biggest economic assets—provoking retaliatory strikes on sites in Qatar and Saudi Arabia and causing oil prices to rise to more than $108 per barrel.

• In Lebanon, Israel launched a separate round of strikes targeting Al-Qard al-Hasan Association, a financial institution tied to Hezbollah. If successful, the attacks on Hezbollah would weaken one of the Iranian regime’s key allies.

• Despite the Strait of Hormuz being effectively closed since the outset of the war in Iran, new reporting shows that about 90 ships with likely ties to Iran have managed to cross, evading Western sanctions and exporting millions of barrels of oil out of the region. (For more on the global importance of the Strait of Hormuz, read Niall Ferguson’s essay, “This Is How the Iran War Goes Global.”)

• Top U.S. intelligence officials said the Iranian regime “appears to be intact but largely degraded” during back-to-back congressional hearings that began on Wednesday. The Trump administration’s foreign policy is under increased scrutiny after Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned on Tuesday out of opposition to the Iran war.

• Confirmation hearings began Wednesday for Senator Markwayne Mullin, Trump’s pick to succeed Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security and lead the administration’s deportation strategy. While a decision has yet to be made, Senator Rand Paul said that confirmation is on track to occur quickly, beginning with a committee vote on Thursday.

• Evanston mayor Daniel Biss won a fiercely contested Democratic primary for an Illinois House seat on Tuesday night, beating Kat Abughazaleh, a young digital content creator who has frequently criticized Israel. Illinois lieutenant governor Juliana Stratton also won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, coming out on top in a race that became increasingly competitive following the retirement of Dick Durbin, the Senate’s longtime No. 2 Democrat.

• A man was arrested on Tuesday after he was caught climbing into the enclosure of pygmy hippo Moo Deng at a Thai zoo. Moo Deng, who has become a viral sensation in the past year, was not harmed in the encounter.

• Set your brackets, sports fans: March Madness begins today. At 12:15 p.m. ET, Texas Christian University will take on Ohio State in the first game of the 2026 NCAA tournament. (Until then, check out Joe Nocera’s piece on why “Paying College Athletes Has Created a Mess. It Was Still the Right Thing to Do.”)

For tickets to a live recording with Jon Meacham in Philadelphia, CLICK HERE and register. Use code TFP for a 20 percent discount.

Richard Connell’s 1924 short story “The Most Dangerous Game” tells of a hyper-sophisticated aristocrat who hunts human beings for sport on his private island.

In this episode, best-selling author, screenwriter, and former Nav…

Mass migration. Net-zero carbon goals. Expansive welfare states. Identity politics. Limited defense spending. Throughout the 2010s, all these policies became causes du jour across the European continent. It was an intellectual mood captured by three famous words from former German chancellor Angela Merkel: wir shaffen das, roughly meaning “we can handle…