Last week, missiles hit Syrian and Iranian military positions outside Damascus, reportedly killing multiple Hizballah operatives. There is little doubt that the attack was the work of the IDF, which has conducted thousands of airstrikes on military targets in Syria belonging to Iran and its proxies. Jacob Nagel and Jonathan Schanzer explain:

According to the current IDF chief of staff Aviv Kochavi, the top concern [in Syria] is Iran’s provision of precision-guided missiles (PGMs). Entire rockets, but sometimes just the components and technology to manufacture or convert “dumb rockets” into “smart missiles,” are traveling by way of a “land bridge” from Syria to Lebanon, where Hizballah seeks to build a formidable arsenal of [these] missiles. . . . Israel has warned [that] if Hizballah acquires enough PGMs to pose a strategic threat from Lebanese soil, or acquires the capabilities to produce them, there will be a devastating conflict.

Iran began to export precision-guided munitions to its proxies around 2013. Some may have evasive capabilities, to outmaneuver Israel’s existing missile-defense systems. All have the capability to strike within ten yards of their intended target. This is lethal accuracy, representing what Israeli officials call a “game-changer” they vow to prevent.

Iran’s leaders understood that PGMs could be a “game-changer” because they offer terrorist groups, like Hizballah, the means to achieve air superiority without airbases or combat aircraft. . . . Grasping the dangers, Israel is interdicting and destroying PGM materials wherever and whenever possible. This explains Iran’s decision in 2016 to change its modus operandi. It mostly halted the transfer of complete missiles, electing instead to convert existing unguided missiles into accurate ones. The regime is now transferring the smaller parts (navigation, wings, command and control, and more) via Syria to Hizballah. The terror group is exploiting a wide array of smuggling routes from Syria to Lebanon (air, ground, and sea) to evade Israeli interdiction.

It is not clear whether Jerusalem will be able to halt such efforts by continuing its current strategy of periodic airstrikes. If not, write Nagel and Schanzer, more dramatic action may be required.

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.