The current earl of Balfour, in a letter to the New York Times, recently wrote that Israel’s “increasing inability to address [the Palestinians’] condition, coupled with the expansion into Arab territory [sic] of the Jewish settlements, are major factors in growing anti-Semitism around the world.” Therefore, wrote Lord Roderick Balfour—a descendant of the author of the famous 1917 British declaration favoring “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”—it is Israel’s duty to “allow the Palestinians their own state” and thus save Jews everywhere from hatred and violence. Alan Dershowitz responds:

Anyone who hates Jews “around the world” because they disagree with the policies of Israel would be ready to hate Jews on the basis of any pretext. . . . To prove the point, let us consider other countries: has there been growing anti-Chinese feelings around the world as the result of China’s occupation of Tibet? Is there growing hatred of Americans of Turkish background because of Turkey’s unwillingness to end the conflict in Cypress? . . . The answer to all of these questions is a resounding no. If Jews are the only group that suffers because of controversial policies by Israel, then the onus lies on the anti-Semites rather than on the nation state of the Jewish people. . . .

Even if it were true that anti-Semitism is increasing as the result of Israeli policies, no Israeli policy should ever be decided based on the reaction of bigots around the world. Anti-Semitism, the oldest of bigotries, will persist so long as it is seen to be justified by apologists like Roderick Balfour. Though Balfour does not explicitly justify anti-Semitism, the entire thrust of his letter is that hatred of Jews is at least understandable in light of Israel’s policies.

Balfour doesn’t say a word about the unwillingness of the Palestinian leadership to accept Israel’s repeated offers of statehood to the Palestinians. . . . Nor does Balfour mention Hamas, Hizballah, and other terrorist groups that constantly threaten Israel, along with Iran’s publicly declared determination to destroy the state that Lord Arthur Balfour helped to create. It’s all Israel’s fault, according to Balfour, and the resulting increase in anti-Semitism is Israel’s fault 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.