When asked why it is so important that his cabinet have an equal proportion of men and women, Canada’s new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, replied, “Because it’s 2015.” Similarly, writes Abe Greenwald, Trudeau is pursuing more “balanced” relations with Israel—in part by attempting to improve its relations with Lebanon—because it’s the trendy thing to do:

Among progressives, the term “balance” can excuse all manner of foolishness. . . . There is no sound justification for Canada to cool relations with Israel while flattering Israel’s neighbors. There are only stock liberal notions about Israeli misconduct and the need for “balance” in Middle East affairs. When you act . . . mechanically, you lose the ability to think critically. What’s the real reason Canada is changing its tone toward Israel? Because that’s what liberal governments do these days. Because it’s 2015. Mischief to follow.

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.