Hillel Fradkin considers the U.S. government’s increasing hostility toward the Jewish state in light of Joshua Muravchik’s recent book Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned against Israel. Fradkin concludes:

Obviously [the current trend in U.S.-Israel relations] presents a danger to Israel, but as one sees from Muravchik’s book, it also presents a danger to the United States—a danger to its principles and therewith to its political, moral, and intellectual health, a danger to which the European West has already succumbed.

What has saved America from this disease? As Muravchik observes, the United States held firm against the moral and political direction of Europe not primarily because of a “Jewish lobby” or an “Evangelical lobby,” though those were not unimportant. It held firm largely because most Americans recognized and respected what Israel truly is: a liberal democracy similar to their own and like all liberal democracies threatened by forces hostile to such regimes. . . .

That [America’s] material security would be at risk were Israel were to be destroyed is relatively clear. In the Middle East, America has no other liberal democratic ally, and Israel wields significant power. Yet even more harmful to our health would be the betrayal of our principles and its political and moral consequences. Joining the jackals, as Europe has now frequently done, may yield short-term gains. But as Muravchik ably shows, in the long term the U.S. bears the risk of actually becoming a jackal.

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.