The recent Knesset legislation that bans activists affiliated with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement from entering Israel has sparked condemnations from a variety of corners in the Diaspora, including from the Anti-Defamation League and a number of liberal Zionists. While sympathetic to the rationale for the law, and for other legislative attempts to fight the activities of anti-Israel non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Gerald Steinberg argues that Israeli politicians have the wrong approach. (Free registration required.)

To their critics, [such] restrictions are assaults on democracy [or] worse. But for Israeli politicians on the right and center of the political spectrum, the BDS visa law, like other measures, was a necessary response to the ugly political war being waged against the Jewish state. Such policies provide headlines for the politicians and show determination to defeat the demonization campaigns that libel [Israel] and cavalierly accuse IDF soldiers of war crimes. Similarly, Israeli politicians repeatedly denounce groups like Breaking the Silence and B’tselem, whose leaders travel the world condemning the IDF, annoying large segments of the Israeli public (not only the right). These attacks are largely ineffective, [however,] and they allow the NGOs to portray themselves as victims of a witch-hunt.

Similarly, for many Zionists around the world who are not interested in domestic Israeli politics, the BDS legislation and similar policies are entirely counterproductive. The use of legislation (especially measures that will not pass scrutiny by the courts), regulations, and other [political] approaches causes significant damage to Israel’s international image. The picture that emerges is one of a powerful, aggressive government harassing weak NGOs. . . .

[I]nstead of attempting to use state power against the NGOs that lead BDS and lawfare campaigns [against the Jewish state], Israeli politicians should leave the counter-attacks to the [pro-Israel] NGOs that have proven effective on this front. In this “soft-power” conflict, NGOs have a major advantage over governments: [they] do not have to please voters and are able to build alliances with different actors in Israel and abroad.

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.