For much of its history, Lebanon has been riven by religious conflict, which caused a fifteen-year civil war. But now, argues Alberto Miguel Fernandez, poor governance and the threat of economic collapse and even famine pose greater problems for the small Mediterranean country than sectarian divisions:

Decades of living beyond its means, endemic corruption, and government incompetence are taking a deadly toll. Crooked politicians and lousy governance are not unique to Lebanon, but for the past few decades, this deplorable leadership has been joined first to Syrian hegemony and now to Hizballah. It is hard to “throw the bums out” when there is a heavily armed and ruthless outside player ensuring that they stay in.

The damage being done to Lebanon’s future, to its historic role as a refuge for religious minorities—including the Christians of the Levant—to the idea of Lebanon as a unique place of convergence and relative openness and tolerance, is nothing new. The decline has been going on for decades, but it is accelerating at warp speed in the coming months with terrifying power. Lebanon will need billions of dollars, which can only come from the West and from international financial institutions, to bail it out.

If it continues along the path its rulers are setting for it, Lebanon’s future is to become a somewhat larger version of Gaza, but with mountains and a few more token Christians.

A far less likely scenario would have the international community (in Lebanon that really means the U.S. and France) play a more aggressive and pointed ground game . . . against Hizballah and Iranian hegemony and its willing stooges in government. Such an approach requires a clear vision and a single-minded focus on our desired outcome. . . . [The] institution-building in Lebanon that should be done is not in the government but outside of it. . . . This means support for civil society strongly opposed to the pro-Hizballah status quo. . . . Such a [policy] should include coercive but targeted measures against Hizballah’s enablers.

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.