In the West Bank on Sunday, a Palestinian terrorist murdered a soldier and a civilian, and left another soldier in critical condition. Ron Ben-Yishai finds the reports that the perpetrator was a “lone wolf” less than entirely accurate:

[T]his was no ordinary lone-wolf attack; the perpetrator was unusually cold and calculated and likely had military training. We know this because [he] successfully approached [a group of] soldiers, . . . with his knife hidden on his person, drawing it only at the moment he fell upon his victim and stabbed him. [This careful execution is] presumably the reason the attack was so deadly. He also immediately knew how to make use of the gun he [then] snatched and was quite accurate in his shooting.

The terrorist seemingly planned his escape and seized the opportunity to flee when he saw a car abandoned by its driver. He drove to another location and opened fire there as well, before heading toward the Palestinian town of Burqin and abandoning the vehicle to seek hiding, probably realizing that he was better off on foot.

The evidence indicates that he was a member of a local terrorist organization drawing inspiration from Hamas. Perhaps he was even acting on behalf of Hamas, which has recently demonstrated an interest in fanning the flames of violence in the West Bank. Perhaps it is connected to events in Gaza where protests against the high cost of living are increasing. The Hamas department that oversees the West Bank was bombed by the IDF Friday, in response to the rockets launched at Tel Aviv Thursday night. They have good reason to show Israel that they are still up and about, and perhaps [this] terrorist was acting on their behalf.

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.