Israel’s Independence Day, which began Wednesday evening and ended yesterday, is celebrated by countless Jews in the Diaspora with school events, special synagogue services, and the mere recognition of the date’s significance. While the creation of the state of Israel is surely sufficient cause for joy in itself, writes Michael Koplow, it also has additional meaning for Jews living outside its borders:

Jewish liberation and self-determination extend past Israel as the Jewish state, even as I would argue that Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish homeland is a necessary component of that liberation and self-determination. Jewish independence and liberation are also about our right to define ourselves, our right to live free of anti-Semitism, and our right to express our Jewishness as we see fit.

In the past couple of weeks alone, there are disturbing signs that these aspects of Jewish independence and liberation—ones that we have taken for granted—are under erosion. Much has been made of the editorial board of the Harvard Crimson endorsing BDS, [the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel], and rejecting its past stance opposing it, but the BDS endorsement itself is not what should worry American Jews. . . . What should worry us is that the same editorial unambiguously asserted that nothing about the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s “Wall of Resistance”—including the first panel that read “Zionism is racism, settler colonialism, white supremacy, apartheid”—was deserving of the “delegitimizing label” of anti-Semitism.

Note that the Wall of Resistance did not accuse Israel, the Israeli government, or Israeli policies and actions of white supremacy, but rather labeled the idea of Jewish self-determination as white supremacy.

Most [American Jews] are Zionists and some of us are not, and Jews ourselves vigorously debate whether anti-Zionism is inherently or automatically anti-Semitic, but we get to decide whether Zionism is a legitimate or necessary component of Judaism rather than having someone else tell us.

That too, Koplow argues, is part of what Jewish liberation entails.

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.