As happens every four years, Israelis, and those who care about Israel, are wondering what the results of yesterday’s election will augur for the country’s most important alliance. Dan Schueftan, while acknowledging important policy differences between the two candidates, argues that the friendship between Israel and the U.S. is built on the firm basis of common values and common interests that transcend the politics of the moment:

Beyond the basic commitments to a democratic regime and individual rights, the ethos shared by the mainstream American public and the Israeli public is one that respects both the individual and the collective. [Neither Americans nor Israelis] recoil from the use of force when necessary. . . . This ethos is considered invalid in Europe and primitive on U.S. campuses, in the media, in “progressive” circles, and among [many liberal American Jews]. Yet without this ethos one would be hard-pressed to explain the deep affinity for Israel among two-thirds of the American public, largely Republicans, but also among Democrats. They see Israel as a democratic, constructive, and desirable force.

From the [geopolitical] standpoint, Israel, situated in one of the most important regions in the world, encompasses important virtues that no other ally does: Israel is strong, stable, responsible, determined, and always pro-American. Israel is the only U.S. ally that does not ask American soldiers to fight its wars. It is militarily, economically, and technologically strong. It is a democracy that has proven its stability even in times of crisis. Its responsibility is reflected in its restraint in the face of the ongoing threats it has faced for generations, the likes of which no democratic country has ever experienced, and in the extreme caution it has exerted in relation to the strategic capabilities attributed to it.

Presidents come and go. Some act in consultation with Israel, while others are for less receptive to its needs. Beyond these important differences, we must remember there exists a strong ethical and strategic framework for deep partnership, one that has survived unfriendly governments in the past.

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.