While Hamas’s long-term goal remains, as always, the destruction of Israel, Ghaith al-Omari and Grant Rumley argue that the organization’s ongoing conflict with Mahmoud Abbas is the factor most likely to lead to an escalation in violence in Gaza. Thus, Hamas’s massive border protest on Friday was not about Israel’s restrictions on imports into the Gaza Strip, or Egypt’s sealing of its border with the territory, and certainly not about Gazans’ putative desire to return to the homes abandoned by their ancestors, but about breaking the stalemate with the Palestinian Authority brought about by Hamas’s refusal to pay its electricity bills. Nor is Hamas the only party to blame:

Abbas [himself] seems keen on instigating a broader clash. The Palestinian Authority leader made headlines last month for calling the U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a “settler son of a dog” in a speech admonishing the Trump administration’s policies. . . . Yet in the same speech Abbas also directed the bulk of his ire toward Hamas, the group that overthrew his Palestinian Authority in Gaza over a decade ago. . . .

[While] blaming Hamas for an explosion [in Gaza] last month that targeted his prime minister and intelligence chief, Abbas is publicly mulling whether to [impose] further sanctions on an already impoverished Gaza Strip. Indeed, amid increasing concern over his deteriorating health, it appears the eighty-three-year-old leader is looking to strike a confrontational tone in the final act of his presidency, no matter the costs.

It’s these costs that are starting to concern Israeli security officials. The defense minister, Avigdor Liberman, recently accused Abbas of attempting to incite another Hamas-Israel war by cutting off funds to Gaza. American officials have echoed these concerns at a recent White House meeting over the humanitarian situation in Gaza. These fears are well founded. In recent weeks, several Israeli soldiers have been wounded as militant factions in the Strip placed improvised explosive devices along border fences. This, coupled with Hamas’s ongoing mass protests in Gaza, as well as any additional economic sanctions Abbas may impose on Gaza, have many worried that Liberman’s accusation is accurate. . . .

Abbas’s recent combative tone and actions suggest he cares more about his legacy and less about the repercussions of his policies. In Gaza, a cornered Hamas appears to be replicating the playbook that led to previous wars with Israel. Neither side seems particularly interested in de-escalation.

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.