The attack on the portrait of Lord Balfour can be seen as part of a broader trend of tearing down statues of once-revered (and often still-revered) historical figures, a trend that reveals as much in whom it targets as in whom it does not. Take, for instance the statue of the famed aviator Charles Lindbergh that was erected in 2007, on the 80th anniversary of his solo flight across the Atlantic, in St. Louis, the city after which his aircraft was named. While Lindbergh was one of the most admired people in the U.S. in 1927, by 1941 his apologetics for Nazism, and his anti-Semitism, had put him in a bad odor.

Shula Neuman takes a careful look and Lindbergh’s career, his associations with St. Louis, and in particular his attitude toward Jews, which he often expressed in thinly veiled terms:

[At] times, as in this speech from June 15, 1940, the anti-Semitism was more direct: “The only reason that we are in danger of becoming involved in this war is because there are powerful elements in America who desire us to take part. They represent a small minority of the American people, but they control much of the machinery and influence and propaganda. They seize every opportunity to push us closer to the edge.”

For the thousands of people who attended America First rallies, heard Lindbergh’s speeches on the radio, or read them in the newspaper, this was familiar territory. . . . “I have listened to every one of your radio programs so far, the only one I failed to catch was your program last Monday which was cut off of station W.O.R. New York City,” wrote Albert K. Dawson of Jackson Heights, NY. “This station is run by a bunch of Jews who want to drag us into this war in order to take out their spite on Hitler—and I would appreciate very much receiving a copy of this speech if you have a spare available.”

While conventional wisdom in the Western press believes that the war with Hamas has left Jerusalem more isolated and scuttled chances of expanding the Abraham Accords, Gabriel Scheinmann points to a very different reality. He begins with Iran’s massive drone and missile attack on Israel last month, and the coalition that helped defend against it:

America’s Arab allies had, in various ways, provided intelligence and allowed U.S. and Israeli planes to operate in their airspace. Jordan, which has been vociferously attacking Israel’s conduct in Gaza for months, even publicly acknowledged that it shot down incoming Iranian projectiles. When the chips were down, the Arab coalition held and made clear where they stood in the broader Iranian war on Israel.

The successful batting away of the Iranian air assault also engendered awe in Israel’s air-defense capabilities, which have performed marvelously throughout the war. . . . Israel’s response to the Iranian night of missiles should give further courage to Saudi Arabia to codify its alignment. Israel . . . telegraphed clearly to Tehran that it could hit precise targets without its aircraft being endangered and that the threshold of a direct Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear or other sites had been breached.

The entire episode demonstrated that Israel can both hit Iranian sites and defend against an Iranian response. At a time when the United States is focused on de-escalation and restraint, Riyadh could see quite clearly that only Israel has both the capability and the will to deal with the Iranian threat.

It is impossible to know whether the renewed U.S.-Saudi-Israel negotiations will lead to a normalization deal in the immediate months ahead. . . . Regardless of the status of this deal, [however], or how difficult the war in Gaza may appear, America’s Arab allies have now become Israel’s.