Not at all, argues Evelyn Gordon. Despite constant declarations to the contrary, and the evidence of poorly-interpreted polling data, the only political shift Israel is undergoing is leftward. Similarly, and again despite hysterical pronouncements to the contrary, Israel’s Arab population is becoming better integrated into society and suffering from less discrimination than ever before. Gordon explains:

[W]hy do many people nevertheless think that Israel has moved to the right? Presumably due to one seemingly anomalous fact: a change in how Israelis identify themselves. According to the Peace Index, a regular poll begun in 1994, only 12 percent of Israeli Jews self-identified as being on the left this past August, while 62 percent self-identified as being on the right—a dramatic change from the roughly even split of twenty years ago. This change was reflected in the last two Knesset elections, which gave a majority of seats to parties that self-identify as rightist or religious.

But this is misleading; because of the leftward shift of the past twenty years, the term “right” no longer means what it used to. Once, the right opposed any territorial concessions. Today, the right’s acknowledged leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, publicly supports a Palestinian state. Many Israelis, therefore, now see no contradiction between supporting a two-state solution and self-identifying as “right” or voting for a self-identified center-right party such as Likud. . . .

To many Israelis, [however,] the left increasingly looks delusional, because it’s propounding a conclusion that, in their view, contradicts the accumulated experience of the past twenty years. And since most people don’t want to identify themselves as delusional, Israelis are increasingly saying they’re on the right. This, coupled with their desire not to repeat the disastrous territorial pullouts of the past two decades, has also led many to shun parties that explicitly place themselves on the left.

But that doesn’t change the fact that Israelis still overwhelmingly support a two-state solution. Today’s “right-wing” Israel is a country where the majority hold political positions found only among Hadash, the Arab–Jewish Communist party, two decades ago.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.