Earlier this month, the senior Knesset member Gideon Sa’ar left the ruling Likud party to establish a new one, called New Hope. Last week, Ze’ev Elkin—an immigrant from the USSR with unimpeachable right-wing credentials and a reputation as a gifted political tactician—announced that he is joining Sa’ar in the upcoming March elections. Elkin, until now a loyal supporter of Prime Minister Netanyahu, has thus sacrificed a guarantee of a cabinet position in a Likud government for the uncertain prospects of a new political venture. Haviv Rettig Gur observes:

Elkin earned his reputation [as a savvy political operator] the hard way, in legislative sausage-making in Israel’s cutthroat parliament. He is famously the only coalition chairman never to have lost a plenum vote. Or, rather, he lost one vote—the one that took place after he’d rushed out of the parliament building to join his wife in the hospital for the birth of their son.

There’s no magic or mystery to Elkin’s success as coalition chair. He believes in negotiations, loves the cut and thrust of parliamentary wrangling, and has never been afraid to be seen in the Knesset cafeteria hammering out agreements with lawmakers from far-left to far-right, secularist to ḥaredi, Jew and Arab alike. He exchanged jokes happily with the likes of Ahmad Tibi, a far reach across multiple political aisles for both men.

[But] Elkin’s decision reflects more than a single man’s political calculations. The ground is shifting within Likud. The mood has changed. Whether the growing disquiet eventually topples Netanyahu or is soon extinguished in the mobilizing fury of the coming race is anyone’s guess. But it’s there, it’s real, and it’s strong enough to drive some hard choices even among loyal party members.

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.