The creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, argues Abe Haak, would immediately create political instability on the other side of the Jordan—especially if the state were established unilaterally and under the control of Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party. In the worst-case scenario, a civil war would erupt between Fatah and Hamas, both of which have strong bases of support within Jordan, and the Jordanian government would have to intervene in cooperation with Israel—thus undermining its own authority in the eyes of its people. But, writes Haak, the potential problems run even deeper:

Last month, David Miller, a sociology professor at Bristol University, attracted the attention of the Anglo-Jewish press with a rant about the supposed danger posed to civic and campus life by Zionists. Such rhetoric is nothing new for Miller, who has argued—in his academic work as well as in other contexts—that campus Jewish societies are in the employ of a nefarious “Israel lobby,” and that interfaith activities involving Jewish and Muslim communities are “a Trojan horse for normalizing Zionism.” He is likewise convinced that Bashar al-Assad’s mass slaughter of his own people is a hoax perpetrated by a similarly nefarious conspiracy. Unsurprisingly, David Hirsh observes, Miller also believes complaints of anti-Semitism are Isra made in bad faith.