Examining last summer’s war between Israel and Hamas, Efraim Inbar concludes that “it is clear that Hamas lost.” About whether the terror group was sufficiently deterred from launching future wars, he is less certain:

The government of Israel demonstrated caution in avoiding the use of massive force, which is commendable in a democracy that cares for the wellbeing of its citizens and soldiers. . . . However, it remains to be seen whether such conduct eroded Israeli deterrence by delivering a message of weakness and hesitancy, as the readiness to fight, determination, and uncompromising courage are the building stones of deterrence. . . .

Restrictions placed on the IDF for fear of international public reaction, such as avoidance of extensive targeting of multi-story buildings and mosques that served as Hamas strategic facilities and launching pads, may be read as weakness and impair deterrence. Perhaps escalation should have begun earlier in the war. On the other hand, Israel’s ability to target the heads of Hamas’s military branch, the severe level of destruction in parts of Gaza, and the IDF’s capacity to collect real-time intelligence and attack swiftly, may contribute to deterrence. But leaving Hamas in control of Gaza conflicts with the aim of creating long-term deterrence. In light of all this, the contribution of the 2014 offensive to Israeli deterrence is inconclusive.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.