Those intent on boycotting and delegitimizing the Jewish state only feign that they’re motivated by concern for Palestinians, writes Mudar Zahran:

It seems the anti-Semites of today can easily claim “we love the Palestinians” instead of saying “we hate Jews.” This method has been championed by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. BDS is dangerous for all of us and could severely harm the West, the Arabs in general, and the Palestinians in particular.

As a Jordanian-Palestinian, I have witnessed firsthand that most BDS movements do not care [about] the Palestinians. . . . I have personally approached several known BDS [organizations] asking them to boycott many Arab countries for the way they treat my people, and not one time did I find even an iota of interest. . . .

When weighing the facts on the ground, the call to boycott Israel is rather ridiculous. Israel is the largest employment provider for Palestinians. Almost every single friend or relative I know in the West Bank works for Israeli businesses, some even inside Israeli settlements. This by itself is evidence of how little BDS cares for Palestinians, because if Israeli businesses shut down because of BDS, how would the Palestinians make a living?

Let’s not forget [that] the only Middle Eastern countries that allow Palestinians to work unconditionally are Israel and Saudi Arabia. All other countries [in the region] impose extreme conditions on the employment of Palestinians. . . . Still, you never hear the BDS movement even mentioning any of those countries.

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.