After splashy announcements from our European, Australian, and Canadian allies, later this month, the UN will vote to “recognize a Palestinian State”. While theatrical and without legal import, the vote can only be understood as a reward for terrorism and October 7th. Hamas and too many Palestinians have no interest in state building, institutions, democratic elections, or taking part in the “two state solution” and never have. And yet, while Hamas is still holding hostages and blocking humanitarian aid, the UN is displaying its bias against Israel. Will a “state” ever satisfy Palestinian nationalism? Are European leaders just making a play for domestic favor? Will the Jordanian option ever see the sun? And if we wanted to, how would we return to status quo ante October 7?

Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Chairman of the Tikvah Fund, and the Chairman of the Vandenberg Coalition. He previously served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor in the administration of President George W. Bush, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House, and as Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela in Donald Trump’s first administration.

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The intersectional coalition the Democrats put together in 2024, comprised of the 1%, coastal, corporate, elites and the 20% on 80/20 issues, is failing to register new voters or execute at the polls. While they abandon their historic constituencies and adopt more radical left wing cultural ambitions, it’s not clear how the Democratic Party will rebuild. Between inflation and immigration, the Party has antagonized enough voters that they now face a monster structural problem for elections to come. We ask Jay to contextualize the history, how they got here, and how this roadmap will affect the gerrymandering debate, policy, and who we’ll see on the ballot in 2028.

Jay Cost is the Gerald R. Ford nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on political theory, Congress, and elections. He is also a visiting scholar at Grove City College and a contributing editor at the Washington Examiner. He writes and speaks frequently on American elections, with a special attention on placing contemporary trends in historical context.

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Closing out What the Hell’s summer book series, we offer a timely reminder of the value of free speech and critical thinking from a time when it wasn’t taken for granted. Charlie English discusses his book, The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature (Random House, 2025). Charlie chronicles George Minden’s 1980s covert intelligence operation that smuggled literature into Poland from beyond the Iron Curtain. From its Manhattan headquarters, Minden’s “book club” secretly sent ten million banned titles into the East and combated communist censorship, creating a vibrant culture in Poland that would outlast the toppled Soviet regime. What is the value of printed word in our society? Can ideas beat out on the battlefield? Charlie reminds us they can.

Charlie English is a London-based non-fiction writer and the author of three internationally acclaimed books. He has appeared on NPR, the BBC and Channel 4, written for numerous newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Independent, and given talks at Hay, Jaipur and the Royal Geographical Society, where he is a fellow. Formerly, he was Head of International News at Guardian News and Media.

Find The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature here.

Find the transcript here.