In the past several months, the Trump administration has taken a number of measures that make clear that it will no longer turn a blind eye to the misbehavior of the Palestinian leadership, the most recent being the decision to shutter a Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington. Elliott Abrams applauds all of these measures but one:

The decision to close the PLO office in Washington was correct. . . . The PLO is not a state with which the U.S. has diplomatic relations, and the PLO has a long history of support for terrorism. Today, PLO funds pay terrorists pensions and rewards in accordance with the seriousness of their crimes and the length of their sentences; that is why Congress passed the Taylor Force Act that requires an end to U.S. funding of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and PLO unless payments for terror stop. . . .

The decision to cut aid levels was correct, given the refusal of the PA to stop its payments to terrorists and its glorification of terror, and given its increasingly authoritarian rule in the West Bank. . . . But [there should be] one exception: Augusta Victoria hospital in eastern Jerusalem, and the East Jerusalem Hospital Network of which it is a part. . . . Defunding [these hospitals] does not harm the PA or PLO, does not punish the Palestinian leadership that is making terrible decisions, and does not help Israel, but does potentially harm Palestinians who have no role in Palestinian politics.

I don’t understand why the administration decided to cut the hospital funding. [But] mistakes can be rectified, and . . . I hope the administration reconsiders and provides the funds.

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.