Israel has historically refrained from seeking one of the rotating seats on the United Nations Security Council, and was effectively prevented from doing so from 1961 until 2000. But it has now expressed interest in running for a seat in 2018. Michal Hatuel-Radoshitzky argues that it would be wise to do so:

The most significant [benefit of Security Council] membership . . . is international recognition. Particularly for states such as Israel, whose [legitimacy is constantly being questioned], even if access to real influence would be minimal, . . . council membership [nonetheless] confers status and recognition on a state, increasing the prestige of its diplomats both in New York and around the world. . . .

With this in mind, Israel would be wise to develop a well thought-out strategy in order to pursue a seat on the Security Council. In fact, in June 2016, Israel won an election to chair the United Nations’ legal committee, marking the first time that it will head one of the UN’s six permanent committees since joining the organization in 1949. This development signifies a welcome shift in Israeli policy from dismissing the UN as biased against Israel to engaging [it] and striving to create change from within.

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.