The first Jewish politician to win a major-party presidential primary, Senator Bernie Sanders has spoken little about his Jewish identity and less about his stance toward Israel. Seth Mandel examines Sanders’s political background and his likely Israel-related policies were he to gain the presidency:

[Recently, the Israeli daily] Haaretz . . . unearthed an interview Sanders did with the paper in 1990, when he was a congressman. Sanders was already known as a harsh critic of U.S. cold-war policy, especially in Central America. But the interview showed that Sanders faulted Israel, too: he was “embarrassed by Israel’s involvement,” because the Jewish state had been acting as “a front for the American government.”

It’s hard to imagine much has changed. Sanders . . . [is] almost certainly closer to his party’s Israel critics than he is to Charles Schumer. His list of foreign-policy advisers includes James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute—for 30 years a leading anti-Israel voice in Washington—and the conspiracy-theorist Lawrence Wilkerson, who was once chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. The level of Wilkerson’s antipathy toward Israel was evident after it became clear that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons on the Syrian opposition in 2013. Wilkerson . . . insisted that “this could’ve been an Israeli false-flag operation.” . . .

Bernie Sanders has made history—as a Jew. But he’ll be the last one to say so, because when socialism actually triumphs, the revolution is not beautiful, it is not quiet, it is not gentle. And it is never good for the Jews.

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.