Israel has been slow in tapping into the large reserves of natural gas that have been found off its coast. Explaining the political and legal issues that have delayed further pumping of gas, Haviv Rettig Gur comments on the strategic significance of the reserves themselves:

Prime Minister Netanyahu has something of a grand strategy for Israel that sees the Jewish state transforming into a military and economic anchor for an anti-Iranian regional alliance. Higher electric bills are a very small price to pay for Israel becoming a major regional energy supplier to as many allies as possible, as quickly as possible. In the Jordanian case, for example, such a role buttresses a relationship that helps stabilize the West Bank and maintain Jordan as a buffer to the east. With Greece, it helps solidify the interest of both nations to unite in their shared desire to counter an increasingly antagonistic Turkey.

And it hardly hurts that this new role also emphasizes to Washington—still Israel’s major source for both sophisticated military hardware and international backing—the Jewish state’s increasing indispensability in a region marked by the fragility of other allies and past arrangements.

It says a lot about the sheer novelty of Israel’s new status as a budding energy power that this part of the equation, which is both the most obvious and the most significant benefit Israel stands to gain from the gas finds, is largely missing in the national debate.

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.