While the fighting in Gaza has paused for the time being, there is no sign that anti-Israel and anti-Jewish agitation on college campuses has abated. Attempts to curb such agitation by a handful of administrators have raised objections in the name of freedom of speech and academic freedom, often coming from those who until now have not demonstrated even minimal respect for either. Yet there are some serious concerns to be addressed. Ilya Shapiro, a libertarian jurist with a long record as a champion of freedom of expression, argues that there is ample legal recourse for those who wish to crack down on anti-Israel excesses.

[T]he First Amendment does not protect the incitement of violence, which the Supreme Court has defined as speech that is “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” The courts have set a high bar on meeting this standard—but it’s surely been reached in some recent cases both on and off-campus.

Take, for example, the pro-Palestine rally in Los Angeles, where, in the course of the event, a sixty-nine-year-old man holding an Israeli flag was struck and killed. Assuming eliminationist or other violent slogans were chanted there, it would be hard to imagine a more direct connection between those chants and actual violence.

Moreover, writes Shapiro, Jewish students may have legal recourse against universities that fail to curb such behavior:

[T]he legal landscape is ripe for both administrative complaints and lawsuits alleging that all these hand-wringing academic grandees have failed to address the very real threats to the physical safety of Jewish students. At Cooper Union, a staffer locked Jewish students in the library for their own protection in the face of demonstrators shouting, “Free, free Palestine.” I’m not sure offering Jews a chance to hide in the attic satisfies Title VI. . . .

We shouldn’t weaken speech protections, which have made America not only the freest country in the world, but the most tolerant. But sometimes “speech” isn’t speech. Sometimes it rises to the level of conduct that prevents others from being able to live their lives. Right now we need people to discern the difference.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.