In Britain, notes Daniel Johnson, the waving of the Union Jack is increasingly greeted with “condescension and disdain or worse” in elite circles, although EU flags seem entirely acceptable. And for members of the Labor party, there is another favored flag:

[No] animosity greeted the unprecedented (though by no means spontaneous) flag-waving that erupted at the Labor party conference last month. Not that any member of what was once the party of Clement Attlee and Tony Blair would be seen dead waving a Union Jack. No, the eruption of flags brandished by the far-left delegates who now dominate the largest “progressive” party in Europe elicited no censure. That’s because they were Palestinian flags.

The flags alone were disturbing enough. But the context made them even more provocative. The Labor party has been embroiled in the burgeoning scandal of left-wing anti-Semitism ever since Jeremy Corbyn became its leader in 2015. Last summer, new revelations of institutional prejudice against Jews or extreme attitudes to Israel, together with attempts by the leadership to suppress criticism or to purge the critics, made the front pages almost daily. . . . In his speech to the conference, Corbyn announced that his first act on becoming prime minister, on day one, would be to recognize Palestine unilaterally as a sovereign state. . . .

[Corbyn] personifies the pathology of the left throughout the West, admittedly in an extreme form. For hardline leftists, Israel is the archetypal enemy of the archetypal victims: Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular. . . . The existence of Israel is a challenge even to liberal Europeans, because its proud defense of its national identity and independence calls into question the internationalism of the EU. But for the hard left, Israel is not merely an awkward anomaly, to be alternately chastised or cold-shouldered. For them, Israel is an arch-enemy that must be crushed. . . .

If Brexit goes badly—as it may well do, given the malice of Brussels and the muddle of Westminster—then the public will blame the Conservatives. Britain could elect a Labor prime minister who is not only unfit to lead his country, but who hates it so much that he has refused to sing the national anthem. . . . One might suppose that if Corbyn were to find himself at 10 Downing Street, the mandarins of Whitehall would sabotage any attempt by his government to carry out extremist policies. But that assumption does not hold water.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”