Last year, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a database of corporations that do business “directly or indirectly” with Israeli settlements. High Commissioner of Human Rights Prince Zeid Raad al-Hussein of Jordan recently demanded of some businesses that they supply information “confirming, clarifying, or contesting” their place in the database and threatening to release it publicly at the end of the year. So far, only one of the companies has been willing to make Zeid’s communication public, although some have leaked information to the press. Anne Bayefsky writes:

Recipients [of Zeid’s letters] reportedly include Coca-Cola, Caterpillar, Priceline.com, TripAdvisor, and Airbnb, as well as Israeli businesses such as the pharmaceutical leader Teva, the country’s two largest banks (Hapoalim and Leumi), the bus company Egged, the national water company Mekorot, and other major Israeli businesses. . . . [These] companies face public censure—driven by the UN’s vast global network—unless they comply with the demands of Zeid and the Human Rights Council. . . .

The fact is that UN Human Rights Council resolutions have the legal status of toilet paper. But that isn’t stopping the high commissioner from huffing, puffing, and bluffing. And alarmingly, until now, nearly all the recipients of these letters appear to have been playing by the blackmailer’s rules [by not commenting publicly]. . . . Shareholders, employees, and communities that depend on the well-being of the blackmailed companies—along with the elected representatives responsible for serving these constituents—have been kept in the dark. . . .

[O]n the off-chance that the UN letterhead makes American CEOs nervous, they need to be reminded that they owe their allegiance to American law and public policy. It is [high time] for Congress and President Trump to step up and answer this UN assault on American businesses and our ally Israel.

Three simple, morally unambiguous steps will do it: the expeditious adoption of the Israel Anti-Boycott Act [currently before Congress], the immediate resignation of the United States from the . . . UNHRC, [and] refusal to send Prince Zeid another penny.

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.