Going back as early as the 1960s, seemingly mainstream Islamic groups in the U.S.—e.g., the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)—were established in close coordination with the Muslim Brotherhood, and with backing from such figures as the notorious Qatar-based anti-American and anti-Semitic cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi. As Yehudit Barsky and Ehud Rosen show in a meticulous study, these groups, along with a host of other jihadist organizations and ideological tendencies—some of which are sponsored by Iran—have played a crucial role in rising anti-Semitism. Barsky and Rosen write:

In recent years, U.S. Islamist groups and leaders have increasingly sought common cause with progressive left-wing groups that promote minority rights and intersectionality among racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in their efforts to build coalitions around common interests. In doing so, the Islamist groups and the progressive left-wing organizations have formed a red-green alliance, a coalition that crosses ideological lines between the far left (red) and the Islamists (green). Such coalitions are built both by forming a narrative of  the victimhood of U.S. Muslims, and by utilizing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, portraying it as an anti-colonial struggle. This has already brought about the formation of a new type of hybrid group that brings together under one roof activists of various fringe backgrounds.

While the FBI hate-crime statistics showed that the number of anti-Islamic incidents in 2020 and 2021 were among the lowest in a decade (110 and 152 incidents, respectively), U.S. Islamists have been labelling any criticism of Islam and Muslims as well as of themselves and their ideologies as “Islamophobia.” For example, the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, [which praised Qaradawi after his death], has attempted to utilize public discourse at a time when anti-Semitic attacks on American Jews have been at their highest in four decades to suggest that anti-Semitism is minimal in comparison to Islamophobia. . . .

The use of anti-Semitism to undermine [Jews’] political and societal standing is often not considered a calculated threat. Viewed over time, however, it can be understood as part of a larger process of societal erosion in which extremist and anti-Semitic beliefs previously thought to exist on the fringes of society become legitimized as part of the mainstream and normative public discourse. . . . These developments should not be ignored. . . . To this end, the process of choosing allies from the Muslim community should be made much more carefully, and proper due diligence is required.

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.