Now that the nuclear deal with Iran has been completed, and it is unlikely that there will be sufficient votes in Congress to derail it, some have wondered if the Israeli prime minister erred in his vocal opposition, hurting U.S.-Israel relations without successfully stopping the deal. A similar criticism has been leveled against AIPAC. Elliott Abrams finds such criticism utterly without merit:

Netanyahu has always seen the issue of Iran’s nuclear-weapons program as existential for Israel. In that case, how could he not try to change the political calculus in the United States? Should he have pulled his punches, said less, made this a smaller issue—not tried, that is, to win the argument?

[Furthermore], Netanyahu has won the argument: most Americans are highly skeptical of the Iran deal and don’t like it, and it will be disapproved in both houses of Congress, [although the president will surely override congressional disapproval]. In the last months opinion has shifted against the deal, and Netanyahu can take some credit for that. But his critics don’t blame him for losing, they blame him for trying. . . .

As for relations with the United States, there are no polls suggesting any damage at all. Americans don’t appear to blame an Israeli prime minister who argues for his country’s security. . . So what are we talking about here? We are talking about damaging relations with the Obama administration. To that argument there are two answers. First, it’s a diminishing problem, because we are already in the election season. . . . Second, it is also hard to believe that relations with Obama will actually be worsened—only because they are already so bad. . . .

Netanyahu has taught a lesson that’s valuable for the future: an Israeli prime minister who is convinced of his position may take on such a fight even if everyone predicts he will lose it. He or she will not shy away due to political calculations and vote-counting predictions, a very good precedent when matters of national security are at risk. That last calculation applies to AIPAC as well.

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.