This week, a six-person delegation of journalists from Arab countries visited Israel at the invitation of the foreign ministry. Among them was the Saudi blogger Mahmoud Saud, a vocal and public supporter of both the Jewish state and Benjamin Netanyahu. While en route to pray at the al-Aqsa mosque, Saud found himself physically attacked. Ruthie Blum writes:

Calling him a “traitor,” an “animal,” a “normalizer,” and a “Zionist,” these violent [Arab] hecklers cackled at him to “go to synagogue.” As if this weren’t bad enough, they also spat in his face and threw sticks and chairs at him.

[This incident] brings us to a key factor in the pointlessness of peace deals with the Palestinian leadership. Unlike Israel, which has a burgeoning understanding with many of its Arab neighbors based on a shared interest in preventing the Iranian regime from acquiring nuclear weapons, the Palestinians have been kissing up to Tehran.

In a meeting in Tehran on Sunday with the head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, the Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri reportedly said, “We are on the same path as the Islamic Republic—the path of battling the Zionist entity and the arrogant ones.” This followed a visit to Iraq late last month by Nabil Shaath, Mahmoud Abbas’s adviser for international relations, during which he told local Shiite leaders that “Palestinians don’t have a problem with Iran, as Iran has been supporting the Palestinian struggle. We seek to strengthen our relations with Tehran, and we don’t consider it an enemy. The enemy is Israel.”

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.