After being kept classified for over 70 years, the contents of a file in the UK’s state archives labeled “Anti-Semitism in Great Britain” were made public last month. The documents in it, composed by the Ministry of Information—created at the outbreak of World War II to produce propaganda and maintain morale—record rising anti-Semitism throughout the country, some limited concern, a reluctance to take any action, and a general inclination on the part of officials to blame the Jews for encouraging prejudice against themselves. Robert Philpot writes:

During the course of the war, as the East End of London was subject to heavy German bombing and mothers and children were evacuated, many Jews were sent to live in areas without large Jewish populations. It has been estimated that half of those evacuated from the East End—the epicenter of the capital’s Jewish community at the time—were Jews.

[The ministry’s director general, Cyril] Radcliffe, suggested that resentment against Jewish evacuees was a factor in stoking tensions. Jews, he advised Minister of Information Brendan Bracken, had displayed “a lack of pleasant standards of conduct as evacuees.” A further source of complaints reported to him by the ministry’s regional civil servants was the allegation that Jews paid “inordinate attention to the possibilities of the ‘black market.’” . . . [Radcliffe] also appeared to fear that countering hatred of Jews might simply publicize anti-Semitic myths.

The Times of London, [which first publicized the documents], notes [that] “there was a price to pay for the British authorities’ tolerance of anti-Semitism” during the war. It cites the anti-Jewish rioting which occurred in 1947 in the UK after the Irgun hanged two British sergeants in Mandate-era Palestine in retaliation for the execution of three of its members.

Although nobody was killed, the violence . . . shocked many. . . . Moreover, while events in Palestine had been the immediate cause, the link between wartime anti-Semitism and its thankfully brief violent postwar manifestation was a clear one. Britain was already struggling under the weight of the cost of the war and reconstruction, with austerity imposed by the government and rationing and controls still largely in place. In 1947, these difficulties were compounded by a sharp economic downturn and rising unemployment.

In short, Philpot concludes, many Britons were happy to have someone to blame.

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.