On Monday, the United Nations issued its most recent condemnation of Israel, a product of its Commission on the Status of Women. Sponsored by Ecuador on behalf of a group of 134 countries that include Iran, Sudan, and Yemen, the resolution blames Israel for every problem faced by Palestinian women, and calls for more money to be spent on programs that supposedly ameliorate these problems. Claudia Rosett writes:

It is illuminating—or it ought to be—that this latest anti-Israel resolution from the UN . . . followed a report on the same theme by the UN secretary-general, which included a litany of . . . at least fifteen UN offices, agencies, and/or special programs involved in assisting Palestinian women. With slight variations, this has been going on for decades. Yet somehow the UN reports, over and over, that the situation is endlessly dire. And while blaming and condemning Israel, the UN demands that yet more money flow to the aid of the Palestinians, via the UN.

This routine does not deserve to be described as “assistance” to women. There may be a smattering of aid in all this, but in the main this entire setup is a shakedown. Effectively it is an extortion racket that targets not only Israel (and its turf and legitimacy as a state) but also the U.S. (and its great rolling river of tax dollars).

This UN-abetted racket has become big business for Palestinian bosses, and a trough in which American tax dollars are transformed into a grand muck of resources that nourish the lies, bigotries, jobs, and wallets of far too many officials at the United Nations. And for the worst regimes associated with the UN (Iran and its pals come to mind) this is a political bonanza, underwritten by the Great Satan.

Any real remedy needs to start with cutting off the American money that helps bankroll this monstrous sham. And insofar as anyone’s aim is really to help Palestinian women, it’s hard to think of a better place to begin than by doing everything possible to remove from their lives—as well as ours—the pervasive and too often pernicious presence of the United Nations.

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.