According to the regulations of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, Israel—alone among the nations—must be discussed at every session. True to form, the council managed to pass three resolutions condemning the Jewish state last week. None of this should be surprising. What is noteworthy, writes Elliott Abrams, is the number of nations that voted against these resolutions:

One resolution called for Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights. That resolution got 25 votes, almost entirely from Muslim countries plus a few dictatorships like Cuba, Venezuela, and China. No European country voted yes. (Why Brazil, Peru, and Chile voted for it is a mystery, and when the U.S. State Department gets staffed up it might start pressuring them to change their votes.) [Thus], of the members of the council, 25 voted yes but 22 did not—displaying a good lack of enthusiasm for the proposal.

The other resolutions passed by higher margins: 27 in favor or 34 or 41, with 43 voting for “the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination” while only Australia and the United States voted no. . . . That any democracy should vote for that mendacious resolution is unpardonable. Those who did include Belgium, Chile, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK. It includes phrases and conclusions that are simply false, such as reference to Israel’s “forcible transfer of Palestinians”—something that does not exist. . . .

Hats off to Australia, which has just joined the Human Rights Council for a three-year term and stood with the United States. The Australians have stated their “principled opposition” to singling out Israel, and said that they would vote against all [similar] resolutions. . . . Australia has similarly opposed one-sided resolutions in the General Assembly. It is shameful that the Aussies have not been joined by other democracies, but they deserve great credit for taking this stance the moment they joined the Human Rights Council.

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.