Jonathan Spyer is a Middle East analyst, author and journalist specialising in the areas of Israel, Lebanon, Syria and broader issues of regional strategy. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, a research centre located at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya (IDC), and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Our Voice of the Fortnight is from the Times of Israel's 'Wartime Diaries' podcast. In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, Shai Davidai – an Assistant Professor at Columbia University – became an unlikely public defender of Israel. And truthfully, even he was surprised by this turn of events: As a committed left-wing Israeli, he had spent years criticizing the government, and often took to the streets to demonstrate against its policies. But the atmosphere he witnessed on college campuses (and specifically on his own campus at Columbia), compelled him to speak up and speak out.