Despite recent gains in other parts of the country, Bashar al-Assad and his allies have almost completely lost their grip on the Syrian portion of the Golan Heights. The area is now controlled primarily by a mixed multitude of rebel groups, including the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, opposed both to the regime and to Islamic State (IS). The good news is that, between these forces and Israel’s targeted strikes, Hizballah has been unable to maintain a foothold in the area. The bad news is that a branch of IS has established a stronghold in the southern Golan, abutting the Israeli side, and its power is expanding. Fabrice Balanche writes:

[The relative quiet along the Israeli border] has become increasingly fragile. IS is the most immediate threat to it, followed by Nusra Front, whose leaders could quickly shift their anti-Assad jihad toward Israel if circumstances warranted it. After all, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda still believes that the ultimate goal of its struggle is the recovery of Jerusalem and the destruction of Israel. . . .

[In addition], attacking Israel would have extra value for IS, particularly given its recent setbacks elsewhere. History shows that hitting Israel or otherwise showing support for the Palestinian cause is a frequent recourse for Arab despots on the ropes. For example, when Saddam Hussein was under attack by the international coalition in 1991, he tried to mobilize the Arab world in his favor by launching missiles on Israel. For now, the area controlled by Islamic State’s southern branch is cut off from the rest of its territory, but linking them is not unattainable.

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.