According to a 2014 survey by the Anti-Defamation League, 60 percent of Malaysians hold anti-Semitic beliefs—the highest proportion of any country in Asia outside the Middle East. Hatred of Jews also figures prominently in Malaysian political discourse, rearing its head most recently in the context of the corruption scandal now rocking the country. Jon Emont connects these sentiments to the country’s own social and ethnic divisions:

Anti-Jewish prejudice in Malaysia did not develop in response to the tiny population of Jews who lived here, but instead was tuned to the frequencies of a Muslim world that saw the rise of Israel—and the subjugation of the Palestinians—as the religion’s great humiliation. . . . [Now commonplace in Malaysia is the] idea . . . that Jews are using rival political parties as proxies to dismantle the Muslim Malaysian state. . . .

There are strong similarities between the prejudice that Jews faced in Europe and the one faced by ethnic Chinese throughout Southeast Asia. In both cases, heightened senses of nationalism in host countries in the 20th century led to systematic persecution of the “entrepreneurial minority” based on accusations that the minority was abusing its host country’s generosity and exploiting locals for its community’s own benefits. . . .

[Furthermore, the Muslim, ethnically Malay] ruling party, [now using anti-Semitic allegations to defend its prime minister from charges of corruption], is facing a challenge from an Islamist party that promotes the use of Islamic law. Despite their major philosophical differences, this party and the ethnic-Chinese Democratic Action Party (DAP) have formed an alliance to challenge the ruling United Malay National Organization, so linking DAP with Jewish money could be an attempt to undermine this alliance . . . [in] an attempt to “out-Muslim” rival political parties.

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.