Earlier this year, Israeli soldiers shot Mahmoud Shalan, a Palestinian holding U.S. citizenship, when he attacked them outside of Ramallah; he later died of his wounds. The American embassy in Tel Aviv is now demanding that Israel investigate the terrorist’s death—ignoring, it seems, the official investigation that already took place. Stephen Flatow contrasts this concern with U.S. indifference over its own citizens who have been killed by terrorists in Israel:

Anne Patterson, the assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, asserted this week that the Obama administration “continues to have concerns about the death of this American citizen.” She vowed that the administration “will remain engaged with the government of Israel on this issue.” . . .

For some reason, the embassy did not demand that the Palestinian Authority (PA) investigate why Shalan, who was a resident of PA territory, was trying to murder Israelis. Nor do I recall the U.S. embassy ever urging the PA to investigate when its own policemen have murdered American citizens in Israel. . . .

At least 141 U.S. citizens have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists since the 1960s. Yet the U.S. government has never asked the PA to extradite any of the terrorists for prosecution—even though many of the killers have been identified by name (by the Israeli government), and some are even serving in the PA police or security forces. . . .

The Obama administration has a “Rewards for Justice” website that offers rewards for information leading to the capture of terrorists who have killed Americans abroad. The website almost completely ignores the Palestinian issue; it does not even mention the names of the victims of the Palestinians. Only two of the many dozens of such attacks are even described.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.