For many years, Holocaust denial in its various forms—not to mention downright sympathy for the Nazis—has been endemic to the Arab world. But slowly that has begun to change. Robert Satloff, who has been instrumental in this transformation, notes several reasons for it, among them:

[H]storians finally began to tell the Arab story of the Holocaust, that is, the persecution of the hundreds of thousands of Jews who lived in those Arab lands that fell under the domination of Nazi Germany, Vichy France, or Fascist Italy—principally Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya—and the role Arabs played as perpetrators, bystanders, and even rescuers.

[Moreover] Israel now has full diplomatic relations with six Arab countries, whose collective population constitutes a majority of the Arab world, and working relationships with several others, making possible unprecedented human interaction between Arab and Israeli societies. One byproduct is that with contact comes understanding, and even empathy, for the Holocaust and the role it plays in Israel’s national narrative.

[In addition], key Arab states have stopped trying to protect themselves against the spread of Islamist extremism by accommodating the radicals and have shifted gears to confronting radicalism and embracing a strategy of religious tolerance and outreach to minorities. . . . Across the region, this phenomenon has triggered a virtuous cycle of philo-Semitic steps by states not historically friendly to Jews or Judaism.

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.”