Early Saturday morning in Amsterdam, two suspects arrived on a moped outside Cheider — an Orthodox Jewish elementary school in a residential neighborhood on the city’s south side. One of them placed an explosive device against the school’s wall. They sped away. The device detonated.

The same night, four teenage boys were arrested in Rotterdam after an arson attack on a synagogue.

Amsterdam’s mayor, Femke Halsema, called the school bombing a “deliberate, targeted attack” against the city’s Jewish community. She said Jewish residents are living in fear and anger. A Shi’ite terror group called Ashab Al Yamin claimed responsibility.

These are European events. But the ideology that produces them did not originate in European mosques. It was cultivated, normalized, and given intellectual cover on American university campuses — and it is time to say that out loud.

In the spring of 2024, Columbia University became the global symbol of campus antisemitism when pro-Palestinian encampments took over the grounds and Jewish students reported being physically threatened, having their religious symbols torn from their bodies, and being told — directly, on camera — that October 7th would happen “not one more time, not five more times, but 10,000 more times.”

That was not a fringe incident. The ADL documented that 83 percent of Jewish students surveyed in 2025 reported experiencing or witnessing antisemitism on their campus. Fourteen American universities received failing grades for their handling of it. Harvard’s own survey found that nearly half of students rated the university’s response to antisemitism as a negative factor in campus life.

Columbia’s antisemitism task force found that the campus had become a hostile environment in violation of federal civil rights law — Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on national origin. The Trump administration stripped Columbia of $400 million in federal grants as a consequence. Harvard has settled antisemitism lawsuits. A Harvard employee was photographed tearing down posters of Israeli hostages from a campus display.

In December 2024, individuals affiliated with Columbia’s Students for Justice in Palestine distributed a newsletter titled “Columbia Intifada.”

Intifada. At Columbia University. With a newsletter.

The ideology that blew up a Jewish elementary school in Amsterdam on Saturday is not a sudden import. It is the downstream product of years of intellectual normalization — the slow, steady work of making Jew-hatred acceptable in the name of political resistance, academic freedom, and social justice.

When a Columbia student screams that October 7th will happen 10,000 more times and faces no expulsion, no criminal charge, no meaningful consequence — that sends a signal. When a Harvard employee tears down hostage posters and keeps their job — that sends a signal. When 14 universities receive failing grades for allowing Jewish students to be physically threatened and the administrations respond with task forces and statements — that sends a signal.

The signal is: this is permitted. This is tolerated. The Jewish community’s safety is negotiable in a way that no other group’s safety would ever be.

That signal crosses oceans. It lands in Amsterdam. It lands in Rotterdam. It lands in the hands of two people on a moped who think bombing a school full of Jewish children is a legitimate act of political expression.

The Trump administration has already begun the accountability process on American campuses — funding cuts, Title VI investigations, and a clear signal that federal money does not flow to institutions that create hostile environments for Jewish students. That work is necessary and it is happening.

But accountability after the fact is not enough. The question is whether American universities — and the culture that runs them — are willing to look at an elementary school with bomb damage in Amsterdam and recognize their own reflection.

The encampments. The chants. The newsletters. The torn-down posters. The 10,000 times.

Amsterdam is showing us where this goes when nobody stops it. American campuses are still in the middle of it. The choice of what comes next belongs to the people running those institutions — and to the parents and students and donors who fund them.

The bomb in Amsterdam did not come from nowhere. Follow the chain back far enough and you will find a very familiar address.