Following the death in August of the Israeli journalist and politician Uri Avnery, many Israeli public figures—even those who had once been or would seem to be his ideological opponents—have praised him for his dedication to peace. President Reuven Rivlin, for instance, commended Avnery’s “ambition to build a free and strong society” in Israel. Yet, writes Raphael Bouchnik-Chen, we should not forget the destruction wrought by Avnery’s most significant achievement: his unofficial and unauthorized diplomacy with Yasir Arafat, which would eventually lead to the Oslo Accords:

On July 3, 1982, [Avnery met] with the Palestine Liberation Organization’s leader Yasir Arafat in West Beirut in the midst of the first Lebanon war. Arafat himself admitted that Avnery was the first Israeli he had ever met, making him the pioneer who “broke the dam” for the many Israeli left-wing activists who followed. . . . The event was utilized by Avnery, [who was then a reporter], as an international scoop as well as an opportunity to show Arafat as a human being rather than a demonized monster. . . .

While praising Avnery’s meeting with Arafat in Beirut, his admirers intentionally ignored, or at least omitted . . . the fact that the PLO leader [was being trailed] by Israeli intelligence. . . . Though Avnery, who most likely knew this, claimed to have risked his life by attending the meeting, he knew he could rely on the restraint of the Israeli military not to attempt an assassination of Arafat in such circumstances.

Avnery used a similar tactic when visiting Arafat at his headquarters in Ramallah, [in which he] operated as a human shield for Arafat. Striking evidence of this can be found in Avnery’s article entitled “Human Shield.”

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.