William of Norwich, a young English apprentice, was found dead in 1144, the victim of mysterious circumstances. A few years later, a monk named Thomas of Monmouth wrote an account of William’s “martyrdom” at the hands of a group of Jews who allegedly tortured and murdered him in a ritual reenactment of the death of Jesus, in accordance with what Thomas alleged was Jewish custom. From this point on, the accusation that Jews engage in the ritual murder of Christian (or Muslim) children has refused to die, despite the utter absence of evidence. Jonathan Brent reviews The Murder of William of Norwich, a recent book on the subject by E. M. Rose:

[The accusation of] ritual murder, though repudiated by officials of both the Christian and Muslim faiths over many centuries, remains a potent tool of public incitement—its persistence is amply attested to today in the ugly anti-Semitic provocations throughout the Muslim world. Christianity has not become immune, either. In the early 1990s, for instance, the Russian Orthodox Church seriously investigated the possibility that the execution of the Tsar and the royal family in 1918 was a “ritual murder.”

The cause [for the accusation of murder, according to Rose], was to be found . . . in the social, economic, and political upheavals brought about by civil war and the failed Second Crusade—the crushing debt incurred by the knights errant and the humiliations of the crown heads of Europe for their disgraceful defeat. During this period, William of Norwich’s death was promoted, Rose writes, “in the manner of any successful capital campaign” by the intellectual leaders of the time. Once political, social, and economic interests fused with religious sentiment, the blood-libel accusation became a warrant for genocide.

The search for spiritual purity—whether of Catholic souls or of the Nazi Volk—was the pretext for murder, extortion, rape, and humiliation of the Jews, and was always associated with the liquidation of debts, the seizure of Jewish property, the perceived economic gains of local Christian society, and the power of rulers, whether clerical or secular. In short, plunder. Impoverished knights could absolve themselves of debt to Jewish moneylenders; kings and counts could lay claim to vast new riches for their treasuries; peasants and townspeople could take the Jews’ businesses and possessions; and the Church could command the attention of the people and their sovereigns alike.

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.