Peter Berkowitz

Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"US Declaration at 250: New Challenges, Enduring Principles, Part III," RealClearPolitics, June 7, 2026

This is the third of a three-part series originally delivered as a lecture May 15 at a conference, “The Declaration of Independence at 250: What New Can Be Said?” hosted by the Stanford Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School.

https://t.co/i06H9AVPcs

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"US Declaration at 250: New Challenges, Enduring Principles, Part II," RealClearPolitics, May 31, 2026

This is the second of a three-part series originally delivered as a lecture May 15 at a conference, “The Declaration of Independence at 250: What New Can Be Said?” hosted by the Stanford Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. (The first part is here -- https://t.co/3u38yVnpAz.)

https://t.co/oGBacYt1Mf

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"US Declaration at 250: New Challenges, Enduring Principles," RealClearPolitics, May 24, 2026

With the signing of the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago, America’s founders accomplished something new under the sun: They brought into existence a nation rooted in the belief that individuals are by nature free and equal. . . .

https://t.co/3u38yVnpAz

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"The Elites Who Want to Burn It Down," The Free Press, May 12, 2026

On the solemn trek home a few weeks ago from a festive White House Correspondents’ Dinner cut short by the violent intrusion of alleged attempted assassin Cole Tomas Allen, I received a text from a worried friend. I called her to say that I was fine and that near as I could tell no guests had been injured, evacuation of the enormous Washington Hilton ballroom had proceeded in an orderly fashion, and the chilly evening air suited the night’s chilling events. Before hanging up, I expressed the worry that while the nation had dodged a catastrophe, the shots ringing out in the ballroom foyer that evening would exacerbate the fever gripping both parties. . . .

https://t.co/YaXrST0l9d

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"Harvey C. Mansfield’s Honorable Quest To Educate Harvard," RealClearPolitics, May 10, 2026

In a 1975 essay exploring Leo Strauss’ interpretation of Machiavelli, Harvey C. Mansfield asserts that “no paragraph in The Prince and the Discourses has been understood until you have found something funny in it.” Consequently, advises Mansfield, “If you are not in more or less constant amusement when reading Machiavelli’s books, you should consider yourself bewildered.” Mansfield’s amusing observations about the philosophical importance of amusement to Machiavelli’s exploration of serious matters applies to Mansfield’s many writings, certainly his amusingly titled new book, “Where Harvard Went Wrong: Fifty Years of Commentary that Fell on Deaf Ears.” . . .

https://t.co/pR7O9j4oM1

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"The Magnitude of Its Problems Still Eludes Yale," May 3, 2026

Reform of the nation’s higher-education institutions – like reform of any undertaking or organization – comes in various shapes and sizes. . . .

https://t.co/Q5wB1dIeZl

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"Harvard Business School Case Study Vilifies Israel," RealClearPolitics, April 19, 2026

Late in the afternoon Eastern Time on Oct. 7, 2023, after reporting revealed that invading Iran-backed Hamas jihadists had perpetrated atrocities against Israel’s civilian population, 34 Harvard student organizations stated on Instagram that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”

As Harvard fends off a Trump administration lawsuit alleging the university failed to protect Jewish students from “relentless antisemitic on-campus discrimination,” inquiring minds will want to know where Harvard students learned to vilify the Jewish state.

One likely source of such lessons, a recent controversy at Harvard Business School suggests, is the Harvard faculty. ...

https://t.co/M3oLlXO8wy

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"Congress Examines Forces Fueling Campus Antisemitism," RealClearPolitics, April 5, 2026

According to a recent Gallup poll, “Forty-one percent of Americans now say they sympathize more with the Palestinians in the Middle East situation, while 36% sympathize more with the Israelis.” Sea changes in American public opinion need not be spurred on by toxic propaganda campaigns energized by American colleges and universities. But this sea change is. . . .

https://t.co/Bz0ZngsFKC

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"Curriculum for Freedom," Peter Berkowitz interviewed on The Rabbi Avi Show, March 2026
https://t.co/ojsZD6tsKi

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"Becca Rothfeld’s Fanciful Demands of Liberalism," RealClearPolitics, March 29, 2026

Give liberalism credit. It takes a lot to bring together high-brow intellectuals of the postliberal right and the postmodern-progressive left. Yet they make common cause, if largely unbeknownst to themselves, criticizing liberalism for systematically debasing American politics and desiccating the nation’s moral life. . . .

https://t.co/rUlJs38IF5

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"Palantir CTO: Political and Economic Freedom Sustain US Security," RealClearPolitics, March 15, 2026

Public opinion polls – to say nothing of the election last year of Zohran Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, as New York City mayor – indicate that support for socialism in America is rising, especially among Democrats and the young. For an influential segment of the American electorate, socialism’s abysmal track record has not stymied belief that, according to the DSA website, the people should “collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives.” In practice that means that government should manage more of the economy. . . .

https://t.co/AwYmF0eFXY

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"U.S.-Israel Joint Action Against Iran Is Just and Necessary," RealClearPolitics, March 8, 2026

Eight days ago the United States and Israel launched a just and necessary military campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran aimed at eliminating the multifarious military threats posed by the world’s leading state sponsor of terror. . . .

https://t.co/mIwrNAyZ7J

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"Defense of the West Should Put Freedom First," RealClearPolitics, March 1, 2026

Within Trump world, Western civilization is making a comeback. The fateful question is whether Western civilization will make a comeback within Western civilization.

At the 2025 Munich Security conference, Vice President JD Vance stridently criticized Europe for betraying free-speech principles central to Western civilization. Two weeks ago at the 2026 Munich National Security conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warmly reaffirmed that the U.S.-Europe alliance is rooted in, and must remain dedicated to, Western civilization. . . .

https://t.co/pDRC9bEBnH

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"A Solid Core Enlivens Free Speech and Viewpoint Diversity," RealClearPolitics, Feb. 22, 2026

For decades, administrators and professors – especially at the nation’s most selective colleges and universities – have waged a campaign to regulate speech. Their contrived transgressions and expedients – trigger warnings, microaggressions, safe spaces, free-speech zones, bias response teams, and more – exposed higher education to public ridicule. . . .

https://t.co/q0fyOpivs4

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"Yoram Hazony Aggravates Discord on the American Right," RealClearPolitics, Feb. 8, 2026

In “Anti-Semitism and the American Right,” a speech he delivered at the Second International Conference on Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem in late January, Yoram Hazony leveled a grave charge at American Jews, Christian Zionists, and “liberal Republicans” – such as, in Hazony’s assessment, Sen. Lindsey Graham, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Sen. Ted Cruz. According to Hazony, the groups have failed to demonstrate that Tucker Carlson promulgates antisemitic sentiments and tropes. . . .

https://t.co/cXyw7nycqh

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"Not ‘Might Makes Right’ but ‘Might Should Serve Freedom,’" RealClearPolitics, February 1, 2026

Recently White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller suggested that real adults know that might in foreign affairs makes right. The matter, though, is far from settled. Moreover, America’s founding principles and constitutional traditions reject that cynical assessment in favor of the notion that might should serve freedom. . . .

https://t.co/3XFnJddOOw

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"Declarations of Independence: Peter Berkowitz on America and Israel’s Origins and Evolutions," Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Jan. 9, 2026
https://t.co/g7qui0fsjz

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"Michael Doran Illuminates Schisms in Trump World," RealClearPolitics, Jan. 18, 2026
https://t.co/Q1tPKrGatW

[Peter Berkowitz @BerkowitzPeter]

"Antiliberalism Unites the New Right and Disunites America," RealClearPolitics, Jan. 11, 2026
https://t.co/8pseVbVfmT