In his book, The End of Europe (reviewed here in Mosaic), James Kirchick addresses the crisis the continent has found itself in as a result of economic stagnation, the collapse of cultural self-confidence, an inability or unwillingness either to limit immigration or to integrate immigrants and their descendants, and an increasingly threatening Russia. Discussing the book with Jonathan Silver, Kirchick examines the underlying causes of the crisis and its particularly deleterious impact on Jews, who are the targets of the far left, the far right, and Islamists—with the last group frequently using violence against them. Germany, meanwhile, in a tragic historical irony, has—motivated by guilt over its own history of anti-Semitism—brought thousands of anti-Semites into its borders, with predictable consequences. (Audio, 47 minutes. Options for download and streaming are available at the link below.)

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.