With the likelihood growing that Israel will extend its civil law to some areas of the West Bank, writes Ed Husain, a conventional wisdom is emerging in the UK that “somehow the British government must act to stop this ‘violation of international law.’” A number of Jews, many otherwise sympathetic to Israel, has joined this chorus. To Husain, London should focus on something else entirely:

Netanyahu’s strong and fearless stance against Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood is now respected in the Arab world. He has made Israel a strategic ally of Sunni Arabs who wish to see a peaceful world. . . . If you’re in Bahrain, go to the oldest synagogue in the Arabian Gulf. Put on the TV in your hotel room, and you’ll see the vastly popular Saudi channel MBC booming into every home in the region the popular TV series Umm Haroun, lamenting the loss of Jewish neighbors and friends from the region. In the show, an Arab businessman has investments in Israel, another objects, and the former shrugs his shoulders and says, literally “so what?” He continues, “The Palestinians curse us daily while we fund them and their government. What has Israel ever done against us in the Gulf?”

Young Arabs in Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, want to visit Israel.

I could go on, but what of Palestinians? And the West Bank? The Palestinian leadership, sadly, belongs to a bygone world, out of touch with their youth and full of contempt for new leaders in the Middle East. Gaza is an Iranian outpost controlled by the fascism of Hamas, killing dissenters, punishing homosexuals, and preparing terrorists against Israel.

The pressure from Britain, and British Jews, should be on [the Palestinian Authority president] Mahmoud Abbas. . . . Boris Johnson and [his secretary of state] Dominic Raab should support the vision of a new Middle East, and British Jews must not let disagreements with Netanyahu blind them to the bigger picture of a more secure, stable and serene 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.