While its story is less well known in the U.S. than that of the West European or Pacific theaters, North Africa constituted a crucial front in World War II, and the Middle East figured large in combatants’ strategic calculations, especially during the German general Erwin Rommel’s campaign to push the British out of Egypt. The covert aspects of this part of the war constitute the subject of a recent book by the Israeli journalist Gershon Gorenberg. In his review, Efraim Halevy writes:

The battle in North Africa also has critical significance for the Jews of the Middle East, including in Mandatory Palestine. Gorenberg explains that had Rommel tasted victory in Cairo, a German SS unit charged with carrying out “executive measures” would have been sent in the general’s wake to exterminate the 75,000 Jews of Egypt and subsequently the half-million Jews in Palestine, the 25,000 Jews of Syria and Lebanon and, if Rommel realized his “oriental strategy” of conquering the entire Middle East, the close to 100,000 Jews of Iraq.

One of the many stories told by Gorenberg relates to a group of Egyptian officers who were preparing for Cairo to fall to Rommel, whose forces were close to overrunning Allied positions. One of them was a young signal officer, Anwar al-Sadat, who was caught together with his diary that proved he had been sending messages to the Germans. Sadat was a member of a group of young officers who had teamed up to discuss the pros and cons of the two warring European powers. They determined that the Germans, then advancing successfully on Cairo, stood the best chance of success and would emerge as the ultimate winners. . . .

That same group of officers discussed in the book—led by Gamal Abdul Nasser—ultimately seized power in post-war Egypt.

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.