Harry J. Holzer

Harry J. Holzer is the John LaFarge SJ Professor of Public Policy at the McCourt School, Georgetown University and former Chief Economist, US Dept. of Labor.

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

One year ago, a deadly antisemitic firebombing attack in Boulder targeted a peaceful gathering of Jewish community members mourning those murdered and taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th.

Yesterday, the local SJP chapter celebrated the attack– praising the assailant for ‘direct action against genocide’ and describing the victims as ‘perpetrators’ and a ‘manifestation of the Zionist death cult’ that needed to be destroyed.

When violence against Jews is openly celebrated, it is not activism. It is antisemitic incitement.

[Harry J. Holzer @HolzerHarry]

New oped with @david_socolow in @thehill on income share agreeements and loans with outcome-based repayments for job training: https://t.co/3vpESVdqRT

[Melissa S. Kearney @kearney_melissa]

A commitment to academic excellence and objective metrics is making a comeback! 👏

Neither obscuring academic preparedness nor eliminating metrics that reveal socioeconomic gaps was ever going to be the right way to expand access to highly selective universities.

My bet: The backlash against test optional and grade inflation is going to make things harder for admissions officers and varsity coaches, and easier for teaching faculty.

[Harry J. Holzer @HolzerHarry]

This issue contains my review article on recent trends and evidence in workforce development policy:

[AEA Journals @AEAjournals]

The June 2026 issue of the Journal of Economic Literature (64, 2) is now available. https://t.co/yiol5jVCla

[Harry J. Holzer @HolzerHarry]

@MaxBoot accurately describes the grave costs to Israel of the nonstop wars which Netanyahu has pursued since October 7 '23 - and its cratering support in the US:
https://t.co/a3UaZj09ko

[Harry J. Holzer @HolzerHarry]

Awesome book, How to be a Dissident, by @galbeckerman:
https://t.co/rGD8odZjhq
Insights by Solzhenitsyn, Camus, Spinoza and other thinkers on dissent in response to tyranny

[Deborah E. Lipstadt @deborahlipstadt]

Ben Gvir is far more than an embarrassment. He is a gift to the antizionists, antisemites, and Jew haters. He is true threat to Israeli democracy and fundamental values.

[Bill Maher @billmaher]

People say the left and the right can’t agree on anything these days. But there is this one thing:

[Harry J. Holzer @HolzerHarry]

See @TimothyDSnyder on how US under Trump is committing "superpower suicide" with its war on science, immigration, allies and stable institutions:
https://t.co/o0W4NVGRxl

[B L A K E L E Y™℠©® LLC @_iamblakeley]

Fuck Israel and fuck you too @billmaher

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

I’m pro-freedom, pro-law and order, pro-limited government, and pro-the Declaration and the Constitution.

And so today I’m a Democrat.

[Harry J. Holzer @HolzerHarry]

We already knew he is delusioinal, but piece by @AshleyRParker and @MichaelcScherer shows just how much: https://t.co/HAQDsngqH6
Explains his recent global moves, esp. Iran, where he doesn't mind upsetting a chunk of his base

[Michael R. Strain @MichaelRStrain]

.@jasonfurman: "Mr. Powell had something more valuable than academic credentials, though. He had a demonstrated record of integrity and courage. Little did any of us realize how important these qualities would prove to be." https://t.co/HHiVpeWytt

[Harry J. Holzer @HolzerHarry]

Consumer Price Index report for April:
https://t.co/BlIQmnZsPr
Key number is .4% increase in core inflation - excluding energy - which is nearly 5% on an annualized basis.

[Yaakov Katz @yaakovkatz]

Why is Israel preparing again for war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip?

Part of the answer lies in a truth many Israelis continue to struggle to accept: military force cannot alone solve our problems. While military force is essential, and there was never a more legitimate war than the one after October 7, wars are not won only by force. They also require a political strategy.

Here is just one small example: Early in the war, Israeli forces seized Shifa Hospital, uncovering tunnels, command centers, and evidence that hostages had been held beneath and inside the facility. Hamas fighters were eliminated, and the area was cleared.

Then, months later, we awoke one morning to the news that Israeli forces had surrounded Shifa, where about 1,000 terrorists had taken refuge. It didn’t make sense. Just a few months ago, it was empty. How did it suddenly return to being a terrorist refuge?

The answer was that while Israel cleared the area militarily, it left a vacuum, refusing consistently throughout the war to work with any alternative entity that could control Gaza. And in the Middle East, vacuums do not remain empty for long. Hamas filled it again.

That pattern repeated itself throughout the war - Israel would enter an area, dismantle terror infrastructure, withdraw, and then watch Hamas slowly return.

To some extent, the same thing happened in Lebanon. Israel fought Hezbollah, agreed to a ceasefire in November 2024, and assumed deterrence would hold. But there was no broader political architecture established afterward. No alternative mechanism. Then, after the war with Iran broke out at the end of February, Hezbollah resumed firing rockets into Israel once again.

Even with Iran, when the recent war was over, the Israeli public largely felt like the country had failed, despite most of the defense establishment viewing the operation as a significant military success
The reason was that the moment the fighting transitioned into diplomacy and ceasefire negotiations, the Israelis lost confidence. If force did not get the Iranian regime to give up its uranium, then why would negotiations?

And that may be one of the deepest strategic problems Israel faces today: there is no belief in political processes.

There are a number of factors behind this, but one of them is that Israelis are deeply traumatized by the failure of what was the last political process to try and end our longest conflict – the Oslo Accords.

While peace with Jordan was reached after the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, this agreement with the Palestinians is remembered as such a failure that it impacts Israelis’ ability to consider political agreements as pathways to stability.

That disenchantment is what shapes the nation’s approach to war and is why Israeli discourse revolves almost exclusively around phrases like “total victory,” “crushing the enemy,” and “victory for generations.” The language is always military, and the solutions are always military.

But if October 7 taught Israel anything, it should be that military force alone cannot sustainably solve these conflicts.

Yes, Israel must remain powerful, must act preemptively against emerging threats, and must be prepared all the time to deploy military force, but after so many years of war, it should be obvious that military power by itself does not create political reality.

And unless Israel begins to think seriously about what follows the fighting – in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and beyond – it may continue winning battles while repeatedly finding itself dragged back into the same wars.

https://t.co/eZNXUI7I71

[Harry J. Holzer @HolzerHarry]

Here is new research with Amy Feygin at @AIRInforms on why some community colleges are better than others at workforce outcomes and what that implies for policy and practice: https://t.co/7S6B627kY2

[Harry J. Holzer @HolzerHarry]

Here is my Forbes column on the new BLS jobs report for April: https://t.co/Nc5Z2IEfAb
Bottom line: certainly not spectacular but more positive than last year

[Harry J. Holzer @HolzerHarry]

New BLS Jobs Rpt for April: https://t.co/Dkwn84luZw
Payrolls rise by 115K; 3 mt avg is 48K. Unemp Rate holds steady but rises a bit for Men, Teens, Blacks, Latinos. Overall market and hiring look a bit more steady than in 2025

[Yaakov Katz @yaakovkatz]

Decades of conflict change people, and when it comes to Israelis, it has made some of us deeply cynical. We are cynical about politics, about leadership, and at times even about the very idea of what it means to live here.

Israelis were not born with that cynicism. It is the result of living under constant threat, of wars that never quite end, and of enemies – Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas – that never fully disappear. When danger is constant, the coping mechanism is not just resilience, but also sarcasm. That is how you keep moving forward when you know that the threat could come back tomorrow.

That same instinct has seeped into how Israelis view politics. For most of the country’s 78 years, governments have been unstable, and coalitions have almost always collapsed prematurely. Since 2019 alone, Israelis have gone through five elections – some just months apart – each one producing more gridlock than the one before. The result is a public that looks at political moves not with hope, but with suspicion.

Which brings us to this week’s announcement: the merger between former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid into a new party called Together (yes, that is the name).

The reaction was predictable.

Critics on the right rushed to declare that Bennett had finally revealed his “true colors” – that the man who once positioned himself as a representative of the ideological right had now crossed the line by joining forces with Lapid. 

Others dismissed the move as political survival – a desperate attempt by Lapid to reverse declining poll numbers, or by Bennett to outmaneuver Gadi Eisenkot and cement his leadership of the anti-Netanyahu bloc.

Others framed it as transactional: Bennett wanted access to Yesh Atid’s funding, its infrastructure, and its field operations.

Maybe there is truth to some of those claims, and maybe there isn’t. None of us really knows. But focusing the conversation on all these theories misses the more important point. Because what this merger represents – regardless of the intent – is something Israeli politics has been missing for far too long – the possibility of unity.

Latest in the @Jerusalem_Post.

https://t.co/jXHuyP7yOx

[Harry J. Holzer @HolzerHarry]

Parallels between Trump and the rise of the Nazis from @mitchjackson (based on book by British historian Laurence Rees): https://t.co/mpHKbYsFEG