With Israel facing a political impasse due to the uncertain results of the most recent election, the speaker of the Knesset, Yuli Edelstein, canceled the opening of the legislative session last week, first citing fears of coronavirus spreading among the members, then citing a desire not to interfere with coalition negotiations. Soon articles began appearing in the Israeli press warning of imminent danger to democracy, which were then echoed by an American press eager to believe the worst. But the Knesset resumed its business yesterday, with members voting in shifts, and no more than ten members allowed in the room at any given time. Haviv Rettig Gur explains that there was never a threat to democracy but a problem of a very different sort:

Israeli democracy is not in grave danger, but Israeli politics faces its most severe crisis in recent memory. The current political stalemate is rooted not in Edelstein’s obstinacy or in any specific and irrefutable assault on Israeli democracy, but in Blue and White leader Benny Gantz’s political weakness. Gantz claims to have “won” the March 2 election, and, having been recommended as prime minister by 61 of the 120 members of Knesset now holds the appointment from the president to form the next government. But that doesn’t change the fact that he leads a 61-seat “coalition” that is anything but a coalition.

If he sets up a minority government dependent on the mainly Arab Joint List, he is very likely to lose a number of MKs from his own faction. . . . In other words, if he acts on his tenuous majority, he loses it. Conversely, if he seeks a unity government with Likud, he is very likely to lose the Yesh Atid faction of his Blue and White alliance, reducing his political position to a junior partner to the de-facto victorious Likud.

He is in a pickle, and his only path to anything resembling a victory appears to be a unity government with Benjamin Netanyahu in which he, Gantz, goes first in rotation as prime minister. That would enable him—he hopes—to “sell” his new government to Yesh Atid’s leader Yair Lapid, a co-founder of Blue and White, as an election victory.

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.