Reflecting on two years of study of the French Jewish community, Yossi Shain and Sarah Fainberg note the increasing role that Israel plays in French Jews’ sense of themselves:

French aliyah to Israel has quadrupled since [Ilan] Halimi was murdered [in 2006], and between 9,000 and 10,000 French olim are expected in 2015, making France the leading country of emigration to Israel, one which will lose a full 2 percent of its Jewish population (the world’s largest after Israel and the United States) this year alone. Moreover, many well-to-do French Jews who have not made a final exit are part of the “Boeing aliyah,” owning a residence in Tel Aviv or Netanya while continuing to work in Paris or Nice. The “push factor” is driven of course by fear of Islamic extremism but also by the ongoing pessimism of young French citizens about the declining grandeur de la France. . . .

Of course, anti-Semitism [itself] has long been “Israelized,” and not just in France; the justification of anti-Jewish hatred and violence by reference to Israel’s policies is, by now, an old story. But the implications of the increasing importance of Israeli culture for Diaspora Jews have yet to be fully understood, and nowhere is this more true than in France. French Jews follow Israeli media, watch Israeli films, read Israeli literature, conform to Israeli religious patterns, and eat Israeli cuisine. Indeed, according to the sociologist Erik Cohen, when given the hypothetical choice, many French Jews would prefer to “be reborn as Jews in Israel.”

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.”