This week, Bashar al-Assad’s forces, along with those of his allies, began an offensive in the southwestern part of Syria in violation of the “deconfliction zone” established there by Russia and the U.S. If the offensive succeeds, it will bring Iran-backed troops, including Hizballah, right up to the Israeli and Jordanian borders. The territory under assault, moreover, is now held by rebel groups to whom Jerusalem has been providing humanitarian and occasionally even military aid. Eran Lerman and Nir Boms consider Israel’s obligations to these allies:

The relevant question is not whether Israel has a formal obligation to assist [these rebel groups]. These are informal arrangements formed over the course of years and originating in the immediate needs of residents of the region adjacent to the border. Nevertheless, their fate carries ethical, symbolic, and strategic significance. The ramifications of what could happen go beyond the ethical [dimension] and could determine the extent to which Israel is perceived—both in its immediate strategic environment and in the international arena—as a country whose commitment can be relied upon. . . .

Israel may not be able to stem the tide of the assault on the rebel forces in the south. But it would at least be fitting for it to take responsibility and determine the fate of those who have acted on its side and with its assistance. There are ways (even by means of conducting a dialogue through the Russians) of seeing to the welfare of the rebels who consented to work with [Israel] during the past five years and to the properties that might be left behind, including clinics, hospitals, rescue teams, and orphanages. If [necessary], Israel must see to . . . the evacuation of people who might be made an example of for collaborating with it. . . .

Israel must also prepare for a situation in which Syrian refugees and rebels march on the border fence out of fear for their lives (as was the case with the South Lebanon Army in 2000).

Taking this responsibility is not just a moral [obligation]—it is also a political imperative which would have a considerable effect on a fluctuating Middle East, which is examining Israel’s course of action and slowly [reconsidering its attitudes]. Israel must continue doing the right thing, even if doing so involves complex difficulties of implementation.

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.