At a conference of the British Labor party on Tuesday, one item on the agenda was a proposal for a better system for punishing anti-Semitism in the party ranks—of which there has lately been no shortage. The proposal, supported by the party’s leadership, was supposed to receive a rubber-stamp vote; instead it provoked an eruption of anti-Jewish rhetoric, and the vote eventually had to be postponed. Marcus Dysch describes the scene:

[A]ctivist after activist—many of them anti-Zionist Jews—took to the microphone to denounce the Jews behind the plan and Israel in general. . . . Surely now it is beyond doubt who is really running Labor. . . . The mainstream has been blown away and the hard left is now extending its grip on the party’s soul.

[The former London mayor and notorious Israel-hater] Ken Livingstone is back on the airwaves; [the left-wing filmmaker] Ken Loach is on television saying history is there to be “discussed” when asked about those questioning [the historicity of] the Holocaust; and [the hard-left party leader] Jeremy Corbyn sits amid it all, on the dais, watching silently.

The situation was so bad—Israel was compared to the Nazis, and activists argued that Jewish groups should be thrown out of the party—that a number of young Jews stayed away [the next day]. . . .

The depth of the party’s problem with anti-Semitism has been on display for all to see—and it has come with a new level of frightening warnings. “Be careful,” one opponent of the proposed rule changes said from the podium, in what seemed to be a thinly-veiled threat followed swiftly by an anti-Semitic [statement] about collusion with right-wing media. . . . To stand at the door of the conference hall and watch a Jewish anti-Zionist wildly cheered—given a standing ovation in fact—as she screamed from the podium about “despicable” Israel was chilling.

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.