For the past eighteen months, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox parties have succeeded in holding up the implementation of a compromise approved by the Netanyahu government that would create a mixed-sex prayer area at the Western Wall. Yesterday, ḥaredi members of the cabinet, with minimal opposition, managed to “freeze” the plan by threatening to leave the governing coalition. Yossi Klein Halevi comments:

[T]he government’s initial compromise over the Wall was a bold attempt to uphold Jewish unity while still granting Orthodox preeminence. [It] was destroyed by ḥaredi politicians for whom the unity of the Jewish people is secondary to upholding the most rigorous interpretation of Jewish law.

For all the ḥaredi accommodation to the state of Israel in recent years, the ideological argument between Zionism and the Ḥaredim remains profound. Ḥaredim are willing to risk Jewish unity to uphold what they see as the integrity of the halakhic process. Zionists see maintaining the basic and fragile unity of the Jewish people as their primary commitment—indeed the core of their Jewishness.

Zionism was never only about creating a Jewish state; it was about defining Jewish identity. Zionism’s definition is peoplehood. The noun is “Jew”; all other identities—religious and secular, Orthodox and Reform, left and right—are adjectives. In an era when the most basic consensus about Jewish identity is unraveling, Zionism’s purpose is to uphold peoplehood as the neutral binding ground of Jewishness.

From its inception, mainstream religious Zionism implicitly agreed. It reconciled its commitment to peoplehood and halakhah by emphasizing the religious imperative of peoplehood. Because Judaism is a particularist faith intended for a particular people, unlike the universal faiths of Christianity and Islam, strengthening peoplehood is a religious category, a precondition for the fulfillment of Judaism. . . .

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.