In the latest move in his campaign to obtain a Palestinian state (or make a pretense of doing so) without negotiating with Israel, Mahmoud Abbas has declared his intention to sue Great Britain in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the damage allegedly inflicted on the Palestinian people by the Balfour Declaration. Dan Margalit comments:

But the Balfour Declaration didn’t exist in a vacuum. The world supported it. Even King Faisal of Iraq, whose family originated in [what is now] Saudi Arabia, reached an agreement with [the Zionist leader Chaim] Weizmann on its terms. The declaration was approved in 1920 by an international conference that met in San Remo after World War I. The approval of the mandate by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922 gave the Balfour Declaration international validity, almost like the 1947 UN resolution to establish a Jewish state in part of the land of Israel. . . .

If the ICC discusses the matter, it will have to address the question of whether Israel’s existence is legitimate in the eyes of the world, while ignoring the world’s decisions on that subject thus far.

It might be that Abbas . . . is hoping that if he can put Britain on trial for the 1917 document, the justice of Zionism will be called into question hereafter. That approach certainly doesn’t fall into line with his pretense of supporting a two-state solution.

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.