In October, the Department of Education publicized a report based on its investigation into undisclosed donations from Qatar to Cornell, Georgetown, Harvard, Yale, and several other universities. The federal government was in part motivated to pay attention to these irregularities by research conducted by the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy (ISGAP), which had set out to trace the sources of campus anti-Israel activism. ISGAP’s director, Charles Small, writes:

Between 1986 and 2018, Middle Eastern countries donated more than $6.6 billion to U.S. universities, but reported less than $3.6 billion to the federal government as required by law. Of the roughly $5 billion donated by Qatar to various institutions, less than $2 billion was reported properly. . . .

The bulk of Middle Eastern donations coming into the United States emanates from Qatari donors (75 percent), while the Qatar Foundation accounts for virtually all of the donations from Qatar. These funds have a significant impact on universities, especially with regard to attitudes toward Israel. ISGAP’s research identified a direct correlation between the funding of universities by Qatar and the Gulf states and the active presence at those universities of groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which foster an aggressive anti-Semitic atmosphere on campus.

In addition, the ISGAP project assessment found a correlation between funding and the ideological bent of scholarship, including anti-Israel and anti-Zionist sentiment, at departments and institutes at some of America’s leading universities, publishing houses, and academic professional associations. There is also a disturbing connection between this funding and the silencing of institutes and publications that are critical of the prevailing ideology.

Qatar has long been an important source of funds for the Palestinian terror organization Hamas and has forged relationships with Islamist groups ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to the Taliban.

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.