After the 1938 Nazi annexation of Austria, the young George Weidenfeld, who died yesterday at the age of ninety-six, fled his native Vienna for Britain, where he was taken in by a Christian family. As an adult, he founded and directed a prestigious British publishing house. Most recently, he devoted his efforts and financial resources to rescuing Middle Eastern Christians, inspired by a sense that he could thus repay “a debt of gratitude” to those who helped him in his youth. In addition to being a great philanthropist and a passionate Zionist, writes Douglas Murray, he was also “one of the greatest receptacles and advocates for high European culture, [and] also perhaps one of the last”:

No one else could speak with such insight and with such personal experience of Nabokov, Picasso, Isaiah Berlin, and a thousand others besides. . . .

George Weidenfeld was also a passionate Zionist. At a recent public talk on Theodor Herzl he spoke of his own association with the state of Israel since its inception, during which he had been at Chaim Weizmann’s side. But he also focused on what an extraordinary thing it was that in any single human lifespan such a magnificent and necessary vision could have been achieved.

Yet perhaps even more than the past, George Weidenfeld was passionately concerned with the future. He never stopped befriending, encouraging, and inspiring the young. . . . He set up countless scholarship schemes and similar learning opportunities for students in the UK and abroad. . . .

In recent years he was desperately concerned by the rise of Islamic fanaticism, concerned for the state of Israel, and concerned for Christian civilization—indeed concerned for civilization everywhere. A proper estimate of George Weidenfeld’s life would require many, many words from many, many writers. . . . In the Jewish tradition people say of the dead, “May his memory be a blessing.” George Weidenfeld’s long life was, and his memory already is.

Last week, the New York Times reported, based on unnamed sources within the Trump administration, that the president had asked Israel not to carry out a planned strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. That is, somebody deliberately gave this information to the press, which later tried to confirm it by speaking with other officials. Amit Segal writes that, “according to figures in Israel’s security establishment,” this is “the most serious leak in Israel’s history.” He explains:

As Israel is reportedly planning what may well be one of its most consequential military operations ever, the New York Times lays out for the Iranians what Israel will target, when it will carry out the operation, and how. That’s not just any other leak.

Seth Mandel looks into the leaker’s logic:

The primary purpose of the [Times] article is not as a record of internal deliberations but as an instrument of policy itself. Namely, to obstruct future U.S. and Israeli foreign policy by divulging enough details of Israel’s plans in order to protect Iran’s nuclear sites. The idea is to force Israeli planners back to the drawing board, thus delaying a possible future strike on Iran until Iranian air defenses have been rebuilt.

The leak is the point. It’s a tactical play, more or less, to help Iran torpedo American action.

The leaker, Mandel explains—and the Times itself implies—is likely aligned with the faction in the administration that wants to see the U.S. retreat from the world stage and from its alliance with Israel, a faction that includes Vice-President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and the president’s own chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Yet it’s also possible, if less likely, that the plans were leaked in support of administration policy rather than out of factional infighting. Eliezer Marom argues that the leak was “part of the negotiations and serves to clarify to the Iranians that there is a real attack plan that Trump stopped at the last moment to conduct negotiations.”