In 1945, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) replaced its house organ, the Contemporary Jewish Record, with a more ambitious publication that sought to attract the foremost Jewish writers—and some of the foremost Gentile writers, too. What resulted was the monthly Commentary¸ which since then has had an outsized influence on American politics, literature, and culture. On the occasion of Commentary’s 75th anniversary, Norman Podhoretz, who edited the magazine from 1960 to 1994, discusses its history with his son, John Podhoretz, who took over the editorship in 2009—and lays out what he sees as its mission:

I used to say Commentary was originally a Jewish magazine with general interests that became a general magazine with Jewish interests. . . . My mission [as editor] was to fight aggressively in what I saw then and see even more today as a war, a war about America and about Israel. There were those who thought and felt that America and Israel were forces for good in the world and those who thought that they were forces for evil in the world, and I see that same war going on. It’s still unresolved and may even end up with guns in the street. Some days I feel that.

But that war was consistently being fought from 1945 until now in the pages of Commentary, and it’s heated up considerably. That’s what Commentary is about in my opinion, and that’s the value that Commentary has and had, and I would say not only the important contribution but almost the indispensable contribution it made to the cultural life of the country. No one else was fighting that war in the way that we fought it; that is to say, wholeheartedly, aggressively, and with a desire to win.

Part of what contributed to the magazine’s success was the freedom of thought that it enjoyed, a rarity in today’s media environment:

NORMAN: There were many instances when articles were published that offended some important member or leader of the American Jewish Committee. And I always took the position, from the day I was hired until the day I retired, that the AJC was the owner of the magazine and that I was its employee and that it had a perfect right to fire me for cause or no cause. But as long as it didn’t, keep your hands off the magazine. And that worked.

JOHN: We’re talking about a long-gone world in which freedom of speech had become an almost unassailable, liberal value. And even though freedom of speech does not in fact govern the notion of whether or not an institution has to allow people within it whom it is paying the right to use their facilities to say whatever they want to say—nonetheless, it was observed so scrupulously!

NORMAN: [The founders] said from the beginning, . . . we want a distinguished magazine, and they agreed . . . that the only way they were going to get a distinguished magazine was to allow complete freedom.

The negotiations that secured the release of Edan Alexander were conducted by the U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Adam Boehler, with reportedly little or no involvement from the Israelis. Amit Segal considers:

Does Edan’s release mean foreign-passport holders receive priority over those only with Israeli passports? He is, after all, is a dual American-Israeli citizen who grew up in New Jersey. While it may not be the intended message, many will likely interpret the deal as such: foreign-passport holders are worth more. In a country where many citizens are already obtaining second passports, encouraging even more to do so is unwise, to say the least.

Another bad look for Israel: Washington is freeing Edan, not Jerusalem. . . .

Then there’s the question of the Qatari jumbo jet. At this point we can only speculate, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that as Hamas is set to release a hostage, Trump is also accepting a super luxury jumbo jet from Qatar worth around $400 million. Are the two connected?

Still, Segal reminds us that in one, crucial way, this deal is superior to those that preceded it:

The fact that Hamas appears to be freeing a hostage for nothing in return is indeed a victory. Don’t forget: in February, in exchange for the bodies of four hostages, Israel released over 600 Palestinian prisoners, not to mention the Palestinian terrorists—many of whom have Jewish blood on their hands—released in other deals during this war.

As serious as the concerns Segal and others have raised are, that last point makes me think that some of the handwringing about the deal by other commentators is exaggerated. The coming IDF offensive—tanks have been massing on the edge of Gaza in recent days—the many weeks during which supplies haven’t entered the Strip, and Israel’s declared plans not to allow Hamas the ability to distribute humanitarian aid cannot but have made the jihadists more pliable.

And the deal was made on a schedule set by Israel, which said that it would embark on a full-bore offensive at the end of the week if the hostages aren’t released. Moreover, in the parameters Hamas has set forth until now, Alexander, a male soldier, would have been among the last of the hostages to be exchanged.

What of the claim that President Trump has achieved what Prime Minister Netanyahu couldn’t? Again, there is some truth here. But it’s worth noting that the Hostages Forum—a group representing most of the hostages’ families, consistently critical of Netanyahu, and supported by a broad swath of Israelis—has since at least January been demanding a deal where all the hostages are freed at once. (This demand is an understandable reaction to the sadistic games Hamas played with the weekly releases earlier this year and in the fall of 2023.) So Trump let them down too.

In fact, Trump previously promised that “all hell would break loose” if all hostages weren’t released. Neither has happened, so I’m not sure if Trump looks all that much stronger than Netanyahu.

My takeaway, though, isn’t a defense or criticism of either leader, but simply a cautionary note: let’s not jump to conclusions quite yet.