The title of Bruno Chaouat’s Is Theory Good for the Jews? refers to a school of thought—variously dubbed “critical theory,” “postmodern theory,” or simply “Theory”—that dominates philosophy departments in France and literature departments in the U.S., and has infiltrated the humanities everywhere. Articulated by thinkers like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, Theory’s overarching principle is the rejection of absolute truth, linguistic meaning, conventional morality, and the ideals of civilization and progress; its central characteristic is its own obfuscatory jargon. In his book, Chaouat elucidates the troubling tendency of Theory’s leading lights to pay particular attention to the Jews, and to do so in way that is never complimentary, especially where Israel is involved.

Michael Weingrad writes in his review:

Chaouat shows how various postcolonial theorists justify or ignore Muslim anti-Semitism, seen as a legitimate response to European colonialism. Indeed, as Chaouat writes, a number of French writers are less concerned with Muslim attacks on Jews than with the [alleged] political threat posed by those European Jews who decry anti-Semitism even when exhibited by Muslims, and who defend Israel against those who would see the Jewish state destroyed. . . .

Chaouat traces some part of these inversions to Theory’s abstraction of Jews and Jewishness into symbols, fungible moral tokens easily transferred into other bank accounts. It is little surprise that intellectuals who see Jews only as de-territorialized outsiders have little use for actual flesh-and-blood Jews, let alone those with a nation-state. . . . [Today’s] postmodern theorists prefer to support projects of resistance and political violence on behalf of what they see as downtrodden groups. If Jews and Israelis, who are now defined [by most devotees of Theory] as white colonialists or even Nazis, must be thrown under history’s bus as part of this utopian project, so be it.

[But], one might respond, isn’t all this a problem not of Theory but of the radical left more generally? . . . [T]he anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism of postmodern intellectuals, their fetishization of the Palestinians and of violent jihadists, have less to do with new readings of Derrida than with longstanding features of left-wing political ideology. . . . For all his analytical acuity and moral passion, Chaouat leaves the broader historical and philosophical context of Theory’s relation to the left largely unexplored. . . .

While valuable and trenchant Chaouat’s book resembles other recent attempts by left-liberal Jewish academics to push back against their more militantly radical colleagues. . . . One applauds these efforts, but viewed from outside the truncated political system of today’s professoriate they can seem both belated and somewhat pyrrhic: old-fashioned liberals asking their radical colleagues not to march them off the same gangplank as were their conservative colleagues, and faculty who support Israel’s continued existence pleading for Jewish membership in the club of the aggrieved.

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.