After receiving much bad publicity over an employee’s eviction of two black men from one of its stores, the Starbucks coffee chain decided to subject its employees to “bias training.” To this end it consulted with various organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The ADL’s presence in turn provoked the ire of the leaders of the Women’s March—still, more than a year after its anti-Trump demonstration in Washington, an influential organization on the left. Jonathan Tobin comments:

[T]o its credit, the ADL has been willing to take on leaders of the march regarding their soft spot for anti-Semitism. . . . Earlier this year, many people who took part in [the march’s] events were shocked to learn that Tamika Mallory, the group’s president, was a supporter of the Nation of Islam’s leader Louis Farrakhan. . . . Others were concerned over the comments of Linda Sarsour, another leader [of the march], in which she demonized the state of Israel and its supporters, and claimed Zionists could not be true feminists. Along with many other people of good will on both the left and the right, the ADL criticized the pair.

So when Starbucks announced that the ADL would be part of its race-education program, Mallory and Sarsour pounced. Mallory denounced the ADL on Twitter for “CONSTANTLY attacking black and brown people.” Sarsour echoed that smear and chimed in with her own indictment of ADL for supporting programs in which U.S. law-enforcement personnel are given training in Israel, as well as for the ADL’s criticisms of the Black Lives Matter movement’s attacks on Israel. . . .

No one with even a cursory understanding of the role that the ADL has played in the civil-rights movement and in promoting bias education in recent decades can possibly take the statements from Mallory and Sarsour seriously. . . . However, in a leftist mindset in which intersectional theories that link worries about lingering racism in the United States with the war to destroy the Jewish state, even a liberal-[leaning] group like the ADL must be considered beyond the pale because of its willingness to stand up against anti-Semitism. . . .

At this point, anyone who chooses to work with Mallory and Sarsour is sanctioning Jew-hatred.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.