Medgar Evers College, a branch of the City University of New York (CUNY), has announced that, at its upcoming commencement ceremonies, it will grant an honorary doctorate to Reverend Al Sharpton—whose past incitements of anti-Semitic violence have led to multiple deaths. The editors of the New York Post comment:

What makes this [decision] especially galling is that it’s to take place in [the Brooklyn neighborhood of] Crown Heights, the site of the 1991 anti-Jewish riots in which Sharpton played a key role in riling up the mobs. The reverend has never apologized for his actions during those days, which included denunciations of Orthodox Jews as “diamond dealers” and a false claim that Jews operated an “apartheid ambulance service.”

Not until twenty years later did he finally admit he’d made some “mistakes,” while still claiming Jewish “extremists” deliberately misconstrued his remarks.

[L]ittle about Sharpton has changed over the years—save his weight, fancier clothes, fatter bank account, and now-national platform. Medgar Evers College thinks that adds up to an “unwavering commitment to racial, educational, and socioeconomic equity.” . . . But he isn’t a worthy choice for this honor—especially not from a college named for a true civil-rights hero who paid the ultimate price for his genuinely “unwavering commitment” to racial justice.

Sharpton is also expected to speak at a conference sponsored by the Religious Action Center, a major arm of organized Reform Judaism in America, in May.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”