Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s deputy foreign minister and a leading figure in the Likud, has recently been the subject of two controversies in the U.S. First, a Hillel house canceled, for political reasons, a talk she was scheduled to give. (The Hillel’s director later apologized.) Second, she gave an interview in which she commented that American Jewish teenagers, unlike their Israeli counterparts, rarely serve in the military and are not subject to rocket attacks. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the Union of Reform Judaism, responded with pique, calling on Benjamin Netanyahu to dismiss her from his cabinet. Leah Aharoni comments:

The real issue is not what Hotovely had to say. The real issue is who she is. When Rabbi Jacobs and his peers look at Hotovely, they see the ultimate other. She is everything they are not. Hotovely is a young, dynamic, religiously observant woman, who wears her wig with pride. She is [non-Ashkenazi] and [politically] right-wing. And since she is poised, attractive, articulate, and intelligent, they also perceive her as dangerous.

Hotovely breaks every stereotype the Reform leaders seem to want their constituents to believe about Orthodox Judaism and the status of women. No, she is not barefoot and pregnant. Yes, she is the new face of religious women in Israel, an engaged, worldly leader, who embraces the traditional values of Judaism, motherhood, and family. And with all her appeal she holds right-wing political views and serves in Netanyahu’s government.

You would think that the same leaders who are valiantly standing up to Hotovely would have had the courage to stand beside her when Hillel caved in to BDS pressure and canceled her talk. They did not. Ironically, the only American group to defend Hotovely and to offer her an alternative venue for her speech was Chabad. The supposedly misogynist “ultra-Orthodox” rabbis went out of their way to protect her right to speak, while the feminist men did not raise a finger to defend her or her right to free speech.

There is little doubt that if Hizballah had participated more intensively in Saturday’s attack, Israeli air defenses would have been pushed past their limits, and far more damage would have been done. Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack, trying to look at things from Tehran’s perspective, see this as an important sign of caution—but caution that shouldn’t be exaggerated:

Iran is well aware of the extent and capability of Israel’s air defenses. The scale of the strike was almost certainly designed to enable at least some of the attacking munitions to penetrate those defenses and cause some degree of damage. Their inability to do so was doubtless a disappointment to Tehran, but the Iranians can probably still console themselves that the attack was frightening for the Israeli people and alarming to their government. Iran probably hopes that it was unpleasant enough to give Israeli leaders pause the next time they consider an operation like the embassy strike.

Hizballah is Iran’s ace in the hole. With more than 150,000 rockets and missiles, the Lebanese militant group could overwhelm Israeli air defenses. . . . All of this reinforces the strategic assessment that Iran is not looking to escalate with Israel and is, in fact, working very hard to avoid escalation. . . . Still, Iran has crossed a Rubicon, although it may not recognize it. Iran had never struck Israel directly from its own territory before Saturday.

Byman and Pollack see here an important lesson for America:

What Saturday’s fireworks hopefully also illustrated is the danger of U.S. disengagement from the Middle East. . . . The latest round of violence shows why it is important for the United States to take the lead on pushing back on Iran and its proxies and bolstering U.S. allies.