Having recently been asked to write an introduction to an Arabic-language edition of Bari Weiss’s book How to Fight Anti-Semitism, Hussein Abdul-Hussein offers a loose English translation of his remarks, which focus on the connection between hostility toward Jews and the general state of unfreedom in the Arab world:

Arabs do not accept the narrative that [non-Muslim] Arab minorities suffered inequality while living among Muslim Arabs. Instead, Muslims delve into conspiracy theories about the presumed evil plans of world Jewry, including [Arabic-speaking] Jews, to establish the state of Israel, and move to it. Arab conspiracy theories were reinforced by international anti-Jewish propaganda, first with funding and instigation from tsarist Russia, and later from Nazi Germany, followed by the Soviet Union.

Arab anti-Semitism is laced with lies, including the denial of the Holocaust and the misconception that the United States imprisons anyone who denies the Holocaust, which is not true. . . . Arabs cite American nonexistent censorship of Holocaust deniers as the grounds for their censorship of all other literature. The line of Arab argument thus becomes this: if the evil Jews get to censor global literature that would unveil the truth behind their Holocaust lies, then everybody else can censor all other literature.

Weiss [appeals] to Jews and non-Jews to confront the rise of racism and extremism, and therefore anti-Semitism, not in the interest of the Jews alone, but in the interest of freedom in America and the world.

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.