Reflecting on what he terms the “summer of terror,” Douglas Murray assails the inability of Europe’s media, and its politicians, to assess the problem properly:

For the time being, the acceptable thing is to blame Islamic State (IS). There is sense in that. The German train attacker had an IS flag at his home, the Ansbach bomber left a video pledging allegiance to the group, and at least one of the Rouen church attackers had tried to travel to Syria to join it. The extent to which the group is involved varies, and it undoubtedly talks up its capabilities, but Islamic State’s ability to inspire as well as direct [terror] will be a problem as long as it exists.

However, opinion polls show that the European public knows that the problem is bigger than that. Before IS there was al-Qaeda. After IS there will be something else. . . .

The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, . . . among others, is willing to be strident about “Islamism.” But like every other European political leader, he is unwilling to admit where it comes from. Again, the public is ahead of him. They know that Islamism comes from Islam. The extreme interpretation may be a minority problem, but when a continent is struggling to assimilate the Muslims already present, there is a huge risk in bringing in so many immigrants from war-torn parts of the world where jihadism is already rampant. Some of this summer’s attackers were born here; others were recent arrivals. . . .

If Europe wants to help genuine refugees then it can help them outside Europe, as Britain has sought to do. It does not need to turn Europe into one vast refugee camp: we can’t afford it, and aside from a noisy fringe of migration extremists, the people of Europe don’t want it. . . . [But] as the public continues to move to the right, its representatives will continue to stampede to the left. And the . . . madness will continue dragging on into the autumn. Which could be not just the autumn of this year—but the autumn of liberal Europe.

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.