Over the past year, Columbia University has developed a reputation as one of the campuses where anti-Israel demonstrations have been the most strident and persistent, and among the most violent. It has also been the home of some of academia’s foremost apologists for terrorism: Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi, and Joseph Massad. But Columbia, in addition, has long been a place where Jews, and Jewish studies have thrived—as well as a place of restrictive quotas and presidents overly friendly to Nazis. Michelle Margolis takes a look at the university during the 1930s and 40s:

The year 1928 saw not only the first Jewish trustee in over a century (Benjamin Cardozo), but also a donation from Linda Miller honoring her husband with the endowment of the Nathan J. Miller Chair in Jewish History, the first such chair in the United States. Although there was some discussion over the hiring of the incumbent, the young Salo Baron would ultimately be hired in 1930 to the position and would go on to transform Jewish studies in the United States.

In 1936, Maír José Benardete would lead the newly established “Sephardic Section” of the Hispanic Institute at Columbia. Benardete’s M.A. thesis . . . was completed in 1923, on Spanish ballads of Sephardi Jews.

While the far left and the extreme right have responded with frenzied outrage to Israel’s attacks on Iran, middle-of-the-road, establishment types have expressed similar sentiments, only in more measured tones. These think-tankers and former officials generally believe that Israeli military action, rather than nuclear-armed murderous fanatics, is the worst possible outcome. Garry Kasparov examines this mode of thinking:

Now that the Islamic Republic is severely weakened, the alarmist foreign-policy commentariat is apprising us of the unacceptable risks, raising their well-worn red flags. (Or should I say white flags?) “Escalation!” “Global war!” And the ultimate enemy of the status quo: “regime change!”

Under President Obama, American officials frequently stared down the nastiest offenders in the international rogues’ gallery and insisted that there was “no military solution.” “No military solution” might sound nice to enlightened ears. Unfortunately, it’s a meaningless slogan. Tellingly, Russian officials repeat it all the time too. . . . But Russia does believe there are military solutions to its problems—ask any Ukrainian, Syrian, or Georgian. Yet too many in Washington remain determined to fight armed marauders with flowery words.

If you are worried about innocent people being killed, . . . spare a thought for the millions of Iranians who face imprisonment, torture, or death if they dare deviate from the strict precepts of the Islamic Revolution. Or the hundreds of thousands of Syrians whose murder Iran was an accomplice to. Or the Ukrainian civilians who have found themselves on the receiving end of over 8,000 Iranian-made suicide drones over the past three years. Or the scores of Argentine Jews blown up in a Buenos Aires Jewish community center in 1994 without even the thinnest of martial pretexts.

The Democratic Connecticut senator Chris Murphy was quick and confident in his pronouncement that Israel’s operation in Iran “risks a regional war that will likely be catastrophic for America.” Maybe. But a regional war was already underway before Israel struck last week. Iran was already supporting the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Hizballah in Lebanon, and Russia in Ukraine. Israel is simply moving things toward a more decisive conclusion.

Perhaps Murphy and his ilk dread most being proved wrong—which they will be if, in a few weeks’ time, their apocalyptic predictions haven’t come true, and the Middle East, though still troubled, is a safter place.