Last week, London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) agreed to refund the tuition of a student named Noah Lewis, who discontinued his studies because of what he described as a “toxic, anti-Semitic environment on campus.” While SOAS may be a particularly severe offender in this regard, it is not alone: a recent report by a respected British anti-Semitism watchdog catalogued 123 serious incidents on campus in the past two years. Stephen Pollard explains why these cases should not be taken lightly:

The real importance of the . . . ruling, however, is not that it upheld the accounts provided by Lewis. It’s that the appeal exposed the institutional failure of SOAS’s own academics to treat Lewis’s complaints properly. This is a story that is repeated time after time. Worse, it is often the academics who are responsible for fostering such an intolerant atmosphere and who are then protected by their colleagues.

In one instance, a student who complained about a professor’s defense of anti-Semites was as a result subjected to an investigation by the university. As Pollard explains:

It took three months for this investigation to be completed, with all charges dropped. The whole sorry episode reeks of attacking Jews for daring to complain about perceived anti-Semitism. It effectively sends the message to Jewish students and those who represent them that they should shut up and put up with whatever they are faced with, to exculpate the offender and find a way to blame the complainant. To blame the Jew for his own victimhood, in other words—an all too familiar theme in history.

It is quite rightly said that what happens in real life a generation later, as fashionable academic ideas seep out of the academy and as the students influenced by those ideas move into positions of influence in wider society. These are the academics who set the tone and agenda for much of campus life—and for those students who, over the next decades, will be setting the tone for national life.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.