On Saturday, some 4,000 Christians gathered at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher to celebrate an Eastern Orthodox pre-Easter ceremony. The next day, the Jordanian government nevertheless condemned Israel for imposing safety regulations that limited the size of crowd. That condemnation comes on the heels of rocket fire from Gaza on Friday and a wave of deadly terrorist attacks—to which Amman has responded only by rebuking the Jewish state for trying “to change the status quo on the Temple Mount.” Israel, of course, has not done anything of the sort. But given Jordan’s protestations about freedom of worship in Jerusalem, it’s worth noting that during its two-decade occupation of the Old City, the kingdom strictly forbade Jews from entering the holy places altogether.

Benny Avni comments:

In the annual rite of clashes at Jerusalem’s holy sites, the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan has emerged as top arsonist even while donning a firefighter disguise. Secretary of State Blinken and Amman’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, speaking by phone Monday, “discussed the importance of Israelis and Palestinians working to end the cycle of violence by refraining from actions and rhetoric that further escalate tensions,” according to a State Department statement released today.

Unmentioned in that pointedly evenhanded statement was the tension-escalating rhetoric heard in the Jordanian parliament. In a speech there Sunday, Prime Minister Bisher al-Khasawneh “saluted” Palestinians who “proudly stand like minarets, hurling their stones in a volley of clay at the Zionist sympathizers defiling al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of the Israeli occupation government.”

Israel is one of Jordan’s major suppliers of energy, as well as its top source of water. . . . Now King Abdullah II encourages a Hamas-led Palestinian attack on Israel that is disguised as a struggle to protect Muslim holy sites. Such attacks, always based on rumors of Jewish conspiracy against the mosques, have a long history.

Mr. Blinken now turns to the king at Amman for help in lowering the flames, again ignoring Jordan’s role in stoking them.

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.