As Israel heads to its third election in a year’s time, its incumbent prime minister finds himself about to be indicted on three separate charges—an unprecedented situation in every way. Many of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s opponents are hoping that these legal troubles will lead directly to his removal from office, perhaps by the Supreme Court’s ruling that he must step down while under indictment. Although he would be happy to see Netanyahu replaced, Yedidia Stern argues that such an outcome would be a greater affront to the democratic process than any of the prime minister’s alleged wrongdoings:

[B]oth the moral and the practical questions [raised by the accusations against Netanyahu] are matters to be decided by each of us when we go to the polls in March. The immediate dilemma is whether the legal system (the attorney general and then the High Court of Justice) should leave it to the voters to weigh the matter as they see fit, or perhaps should cast a veto and make a categorical decision on the matter here and now.

It is hard to imagine a more political issue than defining who will be the prime minister and the degree of his suitability for the job, under the current circumstances. A decision by an activist judicial system, which would be perceived as flying in the face of the standard democratic elections, would infringe on the voters’ right to elect [their leader].

Israel has reached a dangerous and tragic juncture. Over the last generation, as a country and as a society, we have been foisting the responsibility of making the most fateful and substantive decisions about our national life onto the judicial system. This is a very heavy albatross to hang around the judges’ necks. . . . This is how, sadly, the Israeli legal system has come to embody the dubious blessing that the book of Genesis (16:12) bestows on Ishmael: “his hand is raised against every man, and every man’s hand is raised against him.”

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.