Michael Herzog explains why America’s approach to resolving the conflict in Syria is doomed to fail, and what the continuation of the war means for Israel:

The current diplomatic efforts are predicated on three key assumptions, all of which are flawed. First, that there is a visible horizon for putting Syria back together as one functioning political entity. Second, that a diplomatic solution is a prerequisite to defeating Islamic State (IS). Third, that the major stakeholders in Syria can currently agree on a common goal and implement it.

In reality . . . it is hard to see Syria reunified as one functioning political entity in the foreseeable future. Defeating IS is a prerequisite to a solution in Syria, (if there is one to be had), rather than the other way around, while the likelihood of currently securing an agreement that will be implemented by the stakeholders is very slim. Furthermore, while negotiating on how to extinguish the fire, some of the players, especially Russia, Iran, and the Gulf states, are fanning the flames since they understand that strength and position on the ground will dictate the political outcome. . . .

[For Israel], there is the challenge of hostile actors positioning themselves in the Golan Heights along Israel’s border with Syria and turning it into an active front with established military infrastructure and cross-border attacks. The al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front and some IS-affiliated elements such as the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade are already there, though currently focused on fighting Assad’s forces and their allies. Meanwhile the Iran-led axis has been striving, so far with little success, to establish itself along both the Israeli and Jordanian borders. . . . No less challenging for Israel is the shipment through Syria to Hizballah in Lebanon of strategic weapons . . . which could serve as game-changers in a future conflict with Israel.

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.