Yesterday, the leaders of the eight parties that form the Jewish state’s new governing-coalition-to-be met for the first time. Although the coalition was officially approved by the president, it is far from a sure thing that it will be voted in by the Knesset—which might not happen until next week. David M. Weinberg considers the merits of this highly unstable and ideologically heterogenous new government:

The coalition agreement . . . reminds me of a business contract where partners divvy-up assets in a situation of zero trust. The documents [specifying its terms] do not read as accords designed to heal the country. . . . In fact, all parties are expected to stymie other parts of the coalition on any issue of controversy, like issues of religion and state, alternative-family rights, diplomatic moves in the Palestinian arena, and even the much-needed, ramped-up policing of the Israeli Arab and Bedouin sectors.

In other words, the coalition deal is a cockamamie contrivance almost purposefully designed to achieve political paralysis. All parties are neutered, except where they might, hopefully, agree on overarching policies, such as health and economic recovery plans, and countering Iran.

Under normal circumstances, I would say that this is a terrible thing; an incoherent and impossible method to govern the country. It could fail in 1,000 different ways.

But these are not normal times. Israel cannot afford a fifth election within three years. Israel’s most critical challenges (like the likelihood of more military conflict with Iran and/or its proxies, and of Arab insurrection in Jerusalem) can best be tackled by a broad right-left government. . . . Even more important is the absolute and urgent need to tone down this country’s political heat; to restrain Israel’s raging political fevers after 32 months of furious campaigning.

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.