Last week, the British author J.K. Rowling found herself accused of anti-Semitism on the grounds that, in the movies based on her Harry Potter books, the goblins who run the magical bank have hooked noses. Dismissing this claim against Rowling, Stephen Pollard suggests that many of her critics are in fact motivated by her vocal objections to certain radical ideas about transsexuality, which have made her the target of much invective:

In truth, the only interesting part of this mini-saga is what it tells us about those jumping on the bandwagon. First, some context: during the years of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of Labor, the British Jewish community felt under threat in a way that it hadn’t for generations. . . . The brutal reality was that relatively few figures in public life considered it worth the hassle. One who did, repeatedly, was J.K. Rowling. She spoke out on Twitter, and most notably when she wrote a parody of Labor under Corbyn referring to his issues with the British Jewish community. For most British Jews she is a heroine.

Strikingly, if you look at the identities of those who are now using her supposed antisemitism to attack Ms. Rowling, you will struggle to find a single one who said or did anything in support of British Jews when we most needed it. Worse, many are the very people who cultishly supported Jeremy Corbyn as Labor leader. Far from being allies against anti-Jewish racism, many of them are the issue.

This latest assault on J.K. Rowling has nothing to do with any concerns about anti-Semitism. The only enemies of the Jewish people in this story are those who concoct fake allegations of Jew hate in order to smear a warrior against racism.

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.