Since the Syrian civil war began, Israel has carried out airstrikes to prevent Hizballah from establishing positions close to its borders or receiving shipments of weapons. So far, Israel has not been hindered by the Russian air campaign in Syria, and Russian planes have occasionally entered Israeli airspace without incident. But as Russian cooperation with Hizballah increases, writes Nadav Pollak, a confrontation becomes more likely:

[T]wo main trends will challenge Israeli-Russian coordination. The first is Iran and Hizballah’s objective of expanding their presence in the Golan Heights. In mid-October, Hizballah and Syrian forces pushed back rebels in Quneitra and regained control over a number of important military posts. Since then, the Assad regime and its partners have intensified their operations in the south [of Syria]. . . . [A]ny expansion of Hizballah and Iranian proxies in Quneitra or western Deraa province, [which lies just east of the Golan], would be considered a threat to Israel. And if Russia facilitates such advancement with its airpower, Jerusalem’s ability to react will be more limited.

Another trend . . . is Russia’s deepening relations with Hizballah and Iran. The intervention’s unremarkable results thus far have shown Moscow that the air campaign has its limits without a capable ground force. In that regard, Hizballah and Iranian forces have proven to be instrumental on some fronts. . . . [A]s the fighting continues, Moscow might discover that its relations with Hizballah and Iran outweigh its silent agreement to allow Israeli airstrikes against them. In that scenario, Israeli pilots would quite suddenly find themselves under threat from sophisticated Russian air defenses.

In October, a young Mauritanian national murdered an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago. This alone should be sufficient sign of the rising dangers of anti-Semitism. Nathan Diament explains how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) can, if passed, make American Jews safer:

We were off to a promising start when the AAA sailed through the House of Representatives in the spring by a generous vote of 320 to 91, and 30 senators from both sides of the aisle jumped to sponsor the Senate version. Then the bill ground to a halt.

Fearful of antagonizing their left-wing activist base and putting vulnerable senators on the record, especially right before the November election, Democrats delayed bringing the AAA to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, the election is over, but the political games continue.

You can’t combat anti-Semitism if you can’t—or won’t—define it. Modern anti-Semites hide their hate behind virulent anti-Zionism. . . . The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act targets this loophole by codifying that the Department of Education must use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in its application of Title VI.