Because Yeshiva University (YU) has not yet exhausted the appeals process of lower courts, the Supreme Court recently declined to hear its challenge to a ruling by a New York State judge that the school must grant official status to an undergraduate club for homosexual students. Judge Lynn Kotler had determined that YU violated New York City’s human-rights law in refusing to recognize the group and is not entitled to a religious exemption because its articles of incorporation state that it is an educational, rather than religious, organization. Tal Fortgang comments:

At one level, Kotler’s analysis seems plainly right and reflects some poor decision-making on YU’s part. If only a “religious corporation,” one “created for religious purposes” under New York law, is exempt from anti-discrimination efforts, it is easy to see why Kotler reached the conclusion she did. “Religious corporation” appears to be a legal term of art that means a church, and YU is clearly not a house of worship (though it does at times function as one). When YU’s lawyers asked Kotler to take a “functional” approach to determine the university’s religious character, she had some good reasons to decline.

But to step back from the legal arguments for a moment is to clarify the clash of views that has come to a head in this case. . . . Her mistake arises in her understandable accession to New York law’s false choice between religious activity and education.

We can trace the false choice back to a more fundamental question: what is education? . . . To those who see education as a service, like providing insurance or fixing a sink, religion has no reason to enter the picture because particular views of the transcendent and good have nothing to do with what a university provides, which is ostensibly training to participate in the modern economy. (Taking that view seriously would counsel a host of changes to our model of higher education—about which much can and ought to be said.) But Jewish or not, institutions of higher learning are always in the business of suggesting that some pursuits are good and some are bad as defined by an implicit or explicit code.

Similar fault lines would emerge between Judge Kotler (and the Pride Alliance) and YU if posed a related question: what is religion? . . . Judge Kotler’s mistake, and the mistake of the plaintiffs and those who wish for YU to cave or to lose in this litigation, is forcing the false choice between education and religion. Plaintiffs think they are acting in accordance with New York City human-rights law’s mandate to be sweeping and progressive in eradicating discrimination, but actually they are sending the message that religious education is an unwelcome form of moral formation.

When he called upon Hamas to end the war and release the hostages last week, the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas was also getting ready for a reshuffle within his regime. On Saturday, he appointed Hussein al-Sheikh deputy president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is intimately tied to the PA itself. Al-Sheikh would therefore succeed Abbas—who is eighty-nine and reportedly in ill health—as head of the PLO if he should die or become incapacitated, and be positioned to succeed him as head of the PA as well.

Al-Sheikh spent eleven years in an Israeli prison and, writes Maurice Hirsch, was involved in planning a 2002 Jerusalem suicide bombing that killed three. Moreover, Hirsch writes, he “does not enjoy broad Palestinian popularity or support.”

Still, by appointing Al-Sheikh, Abbas has taken a step in the internal reforms he inaugurated last year in the hope that he could prove to the Biden administration and other relevant players that the PA was up to the task of governing the Gaza Strip. Neomi Neumann writes:

Abbas’s motivation for reform also appears rooted in the need to meet the expectations of Arab and European donors without compromising his authority. On April 14, the EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas approved a three-year aid package worth 1.6 billion euros, including 620 million euros in direct budget support tied to reforms. Meanwhile, the French president Emmanuel Macron held a call with Abbas [earlier this month] and noted afterward that reforms are essential for the PA to be seen as a viable governing authority for Gaza—a telling remark given reports that Paris may soon recognize “the state of Palestine.”

In some cases, reforms appear targeted at specific regional partners. The idea of appointing a vice-president originated with Saudi Arabia.

In the near term, Abbas’s main goal appears to be preserving Arab and European support ahead of a major international conference in New York this June.