An offshoot of the Iraqi branch of Hizballah, the Harakat al-Nujaba militia has fought against Islamic State in Iraq and in support of the Assad regime in Syria—always operating directly under the command of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The militia recently announced the formation of a “Golan Liberation Brigade.” Amir Toumaj explains what this might portend:

While it is not uncommon for entities to name themselves after areas they aim to “liberate,” the militia’s spokesman has said that the unit could assist the Syrian regime in taking the Golan Heights. . . . [But first, the] unit would likely participate in an offensive to capture territory from the Syrian opposition in the part of the Golan still controlled by Syria before moving on to the much taller order of dislodging the Israelis across the border. This week’s announcement reflects Tehran’s priorities in southern Syria since finally taking the fiercely contested city of Aleppo late last year. . . . [R]eaffirming an ideological commitment to fighting Israel signals defiance to a global audience amid a reportedly converging American-Arab-Israeli military alliance against Tehran. . . . Harakat al-Nujaba also released a video promoting the Golan unit that showed fighters marching in columns and carrying a banner reading, “Israel will be destroyed.”. . .

The combined forces of the Syrian regime and the IRGC-led militias are no match for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and this disparity is expected to hold for the foreseeable future. Israel could also adopt a more proactive approach in Syria to foil IRGC encroachment in the Golan, for example by coordinating with Syrian rebels positioned in the area. The Syrian Golan’s flat geography furthermore denies the IRGC suitable terrain to replicate the southern-Lebanon model of concealing rocket launch sites dispersed across a widespread area, making it easier for the IDF to search and destroy weapons systems. For years, the IDF has been fortifying positions in the rocky plateau of Golan to face greater capabilities than the IRGC and its allies can muster.

Yet the claim to retake Israeli Golan underscores Harakat al-Nujaba’s ideological commitment to the IRGC’s and Ayatollah Khamenei’s declared goal of destroying Israel. . . . [For the time being,] IRGC’s primary goals in southern Syria are to crush Syrian opposition forces and to build the capability to open another front against Israel. The IRGC hopes a viable Golan foothold would serve as a deterrent against Israel and the U.S. that could be activated in a future conflict, such as another Israel-Hizballah war.

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.