On Friday, campus police arrested nineteen students at California’s highly selective Pomona College when they stormed the offices of the college president during an anti-Israel protest. Meanwhile, Harvard decided to give around-the-clock protection to the “apartheid wall”—a row of posters with anti-Israel slogans—just a few months after it told Jewish students not to leave a menorah on the quad overnight since it could be vandalized.

The lesson from these two cases is that universities have considerable leeway in how they deal with the wave of vicious anti-Israel activism on their campuses, and with the anti-Semitism and harassment of Jewish students that have accompanied it. And when university administrations fail, there are ways that the government can step in without infringing on students’ or colleges’ freedom of speech. Peter Cordi spoke with three First Amendment experts about why this is so. The bottom line was expressed by Jeffrey Robbins:

Robbins explained that the matter comes down to two main principles; one being that speech is protected, and the other being that the speech and conduct “is in fact intended to hurt Jews and to drive a wedge between them and their identity.” He noted that there is a point when otherwise protected speech creates a hostile environment and can subject people or schools to liability under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. . . .

Robbins said the response to disruptions of university or college events “should be a no-brainer,” and argued that “if a university or college is serious about dealing with this stuff, then those people [disrupting events and classes] should be expelled.”

When anti-Semitic incidents go unpunished, Robbins said, “This implies something nefarious; that universities and colleges lack the guts or the will when it comes to Jewish students to enforce the rules that you just know they would not have to be pressured into enforcing if it were other groups.”

When universities who have been warned but have not addressed the issue are sued and have to “cough up damages,” he argued, “You may see them acting in a totally different way. And that is the kind of lawsuit which it seems to me needs to be explored. Quickly.”

On Tuesday, representatives of Hamas met with their counterparts from Fatah—the faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) once led by Yasir Arafat that now governs parts of the West Bank—in Beijing to discuss possible reconciliation. While it is unlikely that these talks will yield any more progress than the many previous rounds, they constitute a significant step in China’s increasing attempts to involve itself in the Middle East on the side of Israel’s enemies.

By contrast, writes Tuvia Gering, Taiwan has been quick and consistent in its condemnations of Hamas and Iran and its expressions of sympathy with Israel:

Support from Taipei goes beyond words. Taiwan’s appointee in Tel Aviv and de-facto ambassador, Abby Lee, has been busy aiding hostage families, adopting the most affected kibbutzim in southern Israel, and volunteering with farmers. Taiwan recently pledged more than half a million dollars to Israel for critical initiatives, including medical and communications supplies for local municipalities. This follows earlier aid from Taiwan to an organization helping Israeli soldiers and families immediately after the October 7 attack.

The reasons why are not hard to fathom:

In many ways, Taiwan sees a reflection of itself in Israel—two vibrant democracies facing threats from hostile neighbors. Both nations wield substantial economic and technological prowess, and both heavily depend on U.S. military exports and diplomacy. Taipei also sees Israel as a “role model” for what Taiwan should aspire to be, citing its unwavering determination and capabilities to defend itself.

On a deeper level, Taiwanese leaders seem to view Israel’s war with Hamas and Iran as an extension of a greater struggle between democracy and autocracy.

Gering urges Israel to reciprocate these expressions of friendship and to take into account that “China has been going above and beyond to demonize the Jewish state in international forums.” Above all, he writes, Jerusalem should “take a firmer stance against China’s support for Hamas and Iran-backed terrorism, exposing the hypocrisy and repression that underpin its vision for a new global order.”