To wrap up his four-year term as secretary of state—whose highlights include negotiating the disastrous Iran deal, brokering a series of failed ceasefires in Syria, and normalizing relations with Cuba for nothing in return—John Kerry yesterday took a much-publicized swipe at the Jewish state. Calling his speech “a long, meandering . . . exclamation point on a failed foreign policy,” the editors of National Review indict Kerry for arrogance, ignorance, and spitefulness:

[I]n the face of Palestinian violence and Palestinian dysfunction, the Obama administration vents its spleen at Israel, the only party that has proved its willingness to take meaningful risks for peace. Moreover, Kerry’s reasoning is nonsensical even in its own terms. In his speech, he took specific aim at recent settlement activity that he claims makes a two-state solution less viable. Yet the resolution the United States allowed to pass the UN Security Council declares all settlement activity unlawful, even those “settlements”—like the suburbs of Israel’s capital, Jerusalem—that would doubtless become part of Israel under any meaningful peace agreement.

The Obama administration was angry at far-flung settlements, so it cast Jewish control of the Western Wall into doubt? That makes no sense, except as an exercise in pure spite.

Kerry seemed to grow angry when he said that the status quo is “leading toward one state, or perpetual occupation,” but the status quo that he decries is an artifact of ongoing Palestinian terror campaigns, not Israeli settlements. Jews have just as much right to live in the disputed territories as members of any other ethnic group, and Kerry’s condemnation of all Israeli “settlements” echoes Palestinian desires to force Jews to leave the West Bank. . . .

The Obama administration loves to boast of its “values,” and today’s speech was no exception. Yet the “values” advanced in the administration’s recent actions are abhorrent. It has perverted international law, rewarded Palestinian violence, endorsed ethnic cleansing, and applied UN-created double standards that leave Israel as the most persecuted and most condemned state in UN history. . . .

The Obama administration is leaving office as it entered, arrogant and willfully ignorant, refusing to see the plain truth of the Middle East—that Israel cannot make peace with “partners” that long for its death.

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.