According to the cease-fire agreement that ended the summer’s war, as well as the preconditions set by the states pledging to reconstruct Gaza, Hamas is to relinquish partial control of the strip to the Palestinian Authority. But the two have proved unable or unwilling to cooperate. As a result, only a small fraction of the billions of dollars in earmarked aid has been delivered, while buildings destroyed in the fighting remain in ruins. Israel seems to be the one party interested in helping, while Hamas is contemplating another war. Neri Zilber writes:

Israel, of all the parties involved, has shown the greatest degree of flexibility toward a Gaza Strip still ruled by Hamas. In addition to acquiescing in the salary payments, Israel has begun easing restrictions on construction materials and other goods entering the territory, and on certain products (fish, cucumbers) and people exiting. Israel has given its consent to an elaborate UN-led inspection mechanism for reconstruction, which . . . has not yet begun in earnest due to the lack of a PA presence on the ground. “I can’t say that it’s because of Israel that there has been no movement [on reconstruction] at present,” [a] senior UN official said, a sentiment shared by several other foreign diplomats I spoke to in Jerusalem. . . .

Sheikh Mahmoud Musleh, a senior Hamas leader in the West Bank whom I spoke to, had no illusions about the purpose of the new squeeze around his group. “What they are seeking is the end of Hamas military power in the Gaza Strip,” he observed. “This is the main impediment [to reconciliation with the PA].” When I inquired whether his group would consider laying down their arms for the greater welfare of the Gazan people, the answer was definitive: “This is impossible.”

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.