After the recent attacks in Britain, the Palestinian Authority president was quick to issue statements and give speeches showing sympathy with the bereaved and endorsing “a permanent rejection of all forms of terrorism.” Similar pronouncements followed the recent massacre of Coptic Christians in Egypt and the attack on the Saint Petersburg Metro last April. Yet, writes Bassam Tawil, it was a speech Abbas gave in September 2015—calling for the spilling of blood to prevent Jews from “defiling” the al-Aqsa mosque “with their filthy feet”—that sparked the so-called “knife intifada,” which has not yet abated:

For the past two years, Palestinians have been waging a new type of “intifada” against Israel—one that consists of knife and car-ramming attacks, similar to the ones carried out in Britain, France, and Germany. This wave of attacks . . . has claimed the lives of 49 people and injured more than 700. Since then, Palestinians have carried out more than 177 stabbings, 144 shootings, and 58 vehicular attacks. This wave of terrorism is the direct result of incitement by various Palestinian groups and leaders, including Abbas himself. . . .

The deadly attacks continue until this day. Abbas’s remarks served as a catalyst for the new “intifada,” one that is precisely parallel to the attacks we are witnessing on the streets of Paris, London, and Berlin.

Yet Abbas, the world’s newest renouncer of terror, has chosen to refrain from rescinding his explicit call for Palestinians to butcher Jews in order to prevent them from “defiling” the al-Aqsa Mosque. . . . Not only has Abbas failed to withdraw his deadly appeal to Palestinians to engage in terrorism, he has also refused to condemn the attacks that have claimed the lives of scores of Israelis and wounded hundreds of others. . . .

Perhaps it is time for Westerners to realize that there is no difference between a terrorist who sets out to kill Jews and a terrorist who kills British, French, and German nationals. In fact, it has become clear that the terrorists in Europe have copied the tactics of the Palestinians in carrying out stabbings and vehicular and suicide-bombing attacks.

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.