From Nigeria to Pakistan, Christians have been suffering persecution, intimidation, enslavement, and murder at the hands of Muslim neighbors and rulers. During this past Christmas season, writes Raymond Ibrahim, the chaos sweeping through Syria, Iraq, and parts of Africa unleashed new waves of bloodshed; in other places, like Iran, persecution is simply a fact of reality. An example from Kenya:

Gunmen from the Islamic organization al-Shabab launched an early-morning raid on quarry workers while they slept in their worksite tents near the city of Mandera, along the Somali border. Christians and Muslims were separated before the Christians, 36 of them, were beheaded or shot dead. Afterwards, al-Shabab posted a statement condemning the “crusaders”—a standard jihadi reference to Christians—and added: “We are uncompromising in our beliefs, relentless in our pursuit, ruthless against the disbelievers, and we will do whatever necessary to defend our Muslim brethren suffering from Kenya’s aggression.” The killings occurred ten days after al-Shabab’s attack on a bus and the massacre of 28 of its non-Muslim (primarily Christian) passengers. Again, Muslim passengers were singled out and left unharmed.

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.