Yesterday marked the two-year anniversary of the opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem, which has not brought about the diplomatic disasters or waves of violence opponents of such a move have warned of for decades. Now, writes Efraim Inbar, Israel should take advantage of the present circumstances to construct housing and infrastructure in the city and its immediate environs—for reasons religious, historical, and strategic:

The recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state appears to have become a permanent principle of U.S. foreign policy. The former vice-president Joseph Biden, the current Democratic candidate for president, has said that, if elected, he will not move the embassy back to Tel Aviv. As more time passes, additional countries will surely be persuaded to emulate America and recognize reality.

The Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan has further fortified Israel’s control over Jerusalem. The plan affirms Israel’s right to the entirety of “undivided Jerusalem,” reiterating its recognition as Israel’s capital. The plan places the Old City of Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, and gives Israel the task of safeguarding holy sites and guaranteeing freedom of worship, including al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount.

Israel intends to maintain the Jordan Valley as its eastern defensible border. This requires securing the highway from the Mediterranean coast [in the west], where most Israelis live, to the Jordan Valley [in the east] via an undivided Jerusalem and [the Jerusalem suburb of] Maaleh Adumim. Jerusalem, the only junction along the central mountains in the Land of Israel, is the linchpin for maintaining a defensive line across to the Jordan Valley.

The first priority of the new Israeli government should be building in and around Jerusalem. Within the parameters of the Trump plan, the new Israeli government should seize the opportunity to strengthen its hold over the city.

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.