Last week’s congressional hearing on campus anti-Semitism has generated mainstream attention on the corruption of the universities in general, and the fact that they are increasingly becoming breeding grounds for hatred of Jews. Yet, Heather Mac Donald fears that both universities and those who want to save them will draw the wrong conclusions, and simply call for administrators to suppress anti-Israel speech with the same zeal with which they persecute “microaggressions” and forbidden opinions. She writes:

The presidents’ refusal to declare hypothetical calls for the genocide of Jews punishable conduct has been portrayed as the greatest scandal of the hearing. It was not. The real scandal was the presidents’ duplicity in citing a “commitment to free expression” as the reason why they needed to give “wide berth to . . . views that are objectionable,” as [Harvard’s president Claudine] Gay put it.

It was those fantastically counterfactual assertions of loyalty to academic freedom that should have doomed [the University of Pennsylvania’s now-ousted Liz] Magill and the other two presidents. On any common understanding of truthfulness, their claims to protect “objectionable” views were flagrantly contrary to the facts. Having been exposed as hypocrites, dissemblers, and enforcers of politically correct thinking, they should all be fired as unfit to lead institutions ostensibly dedicated to the pursuit of truth and the transmission of knowledge.

Ironically, however, it was their one correct stance during the entire hearing debacle that put them in peril. . . . Speech should be protected unless it crosses the line into direct threats to individuals or incitement to imminent violence. Student parroting of Islamist slogans does not meet those tests.

Of course, even the presidents’ explanation for why they tolerate the pro-Hamas demonstrations is likely a lie. The real reason for their equivocation is fear of the campus left—or, in the case of the diversity bureaucrats who often took the lead in responding to the terror attacks, agreement with the campus left that anti-Israel terrorism is merely a matter of Palestinian self-defense.

Israel’s goals of freeing the hostages and defeating Hamas (the latter necessary to prevent further hostage taking) are to some extent contradictory, since Yahya Sinwar, the ruler of the Gaza Strip, will only turn over hostages in exchange for concessions. But Jacob Nagel remains convinced that Jerusalem should continue to pursue both goals:

Only consistent military pressure on Hamas can lead to the hostages’ release, either through negotiation or military operation. There’s little chance of reaching a deal with Hamas using current approaches, including the latest Egyptian proposal. Israeli concessions would only encourage further pressure from Hamas.

There is no incentive for Hamas to agree to a deal, especially since it believes it can achieve its full objectives without one. Unfortunately, many contribute to this belief, mainly from outside of Israel, but also from within.

Recent months saw Israel mistakenly refraining from entering Rafah for several reasons. Initially, the main [reason was to try] to negotiate a deal with Hamas. However, as it became clear that Hamas was uninterested, and its only goal was to return to its situation before October 7—where Hamas and its leadership control Gaza, Israeli forces are out, and there are no changes in the borders—the deal didn’t mature.