Melissa Landa, who has taught at the University of Maryland’s school of education for ten years, filed a formal complaint this spring over her treatment by the chair and associate chair of her department, who—she claims—discouraged her participation in academic groups that defend the Jewish state and upbraided her for traveling to Israel over Passover, even though she had made appropriate arrangements in advance. The university rejected her claims, but then, despite its no-retaliation policy, decided not to renew her contract. There is now a Title IX investigation into her case. Jonathan Marks comments:

The timing of Landa’s problems with her department, coinciding with her increasing visibility as an anti-BDS activist, is suspicious. So is the abrupt dismissal of an award-winning professor, who was scheduled to teach in the fall, just after she had filed a grievance against her department chair and associate chair. [But] the main evidence that Landa was fired because of her stance on Israel in the academy so far remains Landa’s own testimony, and that isn’t enough. A thorough investigation is warranted.

Thus far, Landa’s story has been covered by, apart from the [school’s] student newspaper, only Jewish or conservative outlets. It’s time people started paying attention.

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.