Writing yesterday morning, with most but not all of the ballots counted and the results not yet final, Liel Leibovitz examines the results of Israel’s recent election:

Blue and White, the center-left party, . . . has failed miserably—in April or now—to propose a solid agenda or a sweeping vision for Israel’s future. At its best, it reminded Israelis that it was the only credible alternative to Benjamin Netanyahu, while implicitly promising to pursue all of the policies that had worked so well for him. . . . In his years in office, Netanyahu was responsible for real and impressive achievements, from forging strong diplomatic ties with India, Brazil, and other nations formerly reluctant to embrace the Jewish state, to keeping Israelis safe and their economy booming.

The Joint List, [a collection of Arab parties that appears to have come in third and is thus] the biggest winner of this election cycle, is as diverse as the Israeli Arab population it represents: some of its candidates are committed Communists, others are Islamists, and more yet are hard-edged nationalists, which makes it hard to pin down on any one side of the political spectrum. Nor is the party really a member of any bloc, as it’s highly unlikely that any mainstream Zionist politician would ever agree to form a coalition with a fiercely anti-Zionist Arab party. . . .

When Israelis vote, they vote because what’s at stake . . . is life and death. The issues Israelis face today are the same they faced yesterday, beginning with Iran, Hizballah, and Hamas. The left continues to offer no real alternatives, nor is it ready to reckon with the spectacular failure of the Oslo Accords. If you want to understand Israeli society, consider the following number: 103. That, most likely, is the number of Knesset seats, out of a possible 120, that will go to parties . . . that support more or less the same military, diplomatic, and economic agendas. Israelis stand united even if their politicians do not.

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.