Margherita Sarfatti, a Venetian Jewess, was Benito Mussolini’s mistress and confidante from 1912 until the 1930s. Sophisticated, educated, and politically engaged, she was unique among the dictator’s many lovers in advising him on political matters. (She fled Italy in 1938 after the fascists enacted anti-Semitic legislation.) The historian Brian Sullivan has published a series of postwar autobiographical articles written by Sarfatti, with extensive annotations and commentary. Although her reminiscences contain much colorful detail, Sullivan makes the mistake, according to Michael McDonald, of believing and further embellishing her exaggerated picture of her own importance. And there is also much that the book omits:

Sarfatti’s memoirs are regrettably silent on many major issues, such as anti-Semitism. Mussolini had Jewish backers among the industrialists and big landowners who helped finance him at the start of his career. Indeed, about 200 Jews took part in the March on Rome. But the fascist movement became increasingly anti-Semitic, to the point that Sarfatti’s sister and her husband died on the way to Auschwitz. Other relatives also died in the extermination camps. Sarfatti sheds no light on how Mussolini—who had for years mocked Hitler for his anti-Semitism and denied the existence of a Jewish problem in Italy—came to impose anti-Jewish legislation in 1938.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”