Although sub-rosa diplomatic contacts and security ties between Jerusalem and Riyadh have been an open secret for some time, the Arab kingdom has avoided any public acknowledgment of its relations with the Jewish state, with which it remains in an official state of war. But some recent developments suggest changing attitudes, while also pointing to the limits of how far the Saudis are willing to go. Bradley Bowman, Lauren Harrison, and Ryan Brobst explain:

Israeli and Saudi fighter jets participated in the same patrol mission, albeit at different times, on October 30, accompanying a U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bomber circumnavigating the Arabian Peninsula and attempting to send a message of deterrence to Tehran. Riyadh’s willingness to join a military mission involving Israel is the latest indication that the actions of the Islamic Republic of Iran are incentivizing some Arab capitals to tiptoe toward overt security cooperation with Israel. . . . Saturday’s flight represented only the second time that Riyadh has participated in a U.S. bomber-patrol mission that included Israeli aircraft.

While the involvement of Saudi and Israeli fighters in the same mission is significant, that development does not necessarily mean normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel is imminent. In its press release regarding the patrol mission, Riyadh failed to mention Israel, actually referring to the multilateral mission as a “bilateral exercise” with the U.S. Air Force. On October 31, the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal Bin Farhan al-Saud, said a Palestinian state is a precondition for Riyadh to normalize relations with Israel.

Yet this position may reflect transient politics more than long-term policy. Indeed, an Israeli commercial jet landed in Riyadh in late October, reportedly marking the first time an Israeli public flight has landed in the kingdom. That first occurred a day after a Saudi jet landed at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport.

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.