Earlier this month, Elizabeth Frawley Bagley was sworn in as the new U.S. ambassador to Brazil. Bagley was nominated a year ago, but her appointment was held up over concerns—voiced by senators from both parties—regarding comments she had made about “the influence of the Jewish lobby,” which she equated with “major money.” When questioned about these and similar declarations during senate hearings, her replies amounted to something less than an apology, as Melissa Langsam Braunstein writes:

For a diplomat, Bagley’s answers were poor. She told Senator Ben Cardin, “I regret that you would think that it was a problem” and “I certainly didn’t mean anything by it. It was a poor choice of words.” . . . Bagley leaves listeners believing her real regret is that the [comments] resurfaced.

Still, Biden stood by Bagley, as did all eleven Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. . . . Bagley has been in and around Democratic politics and foreign policy for decades. However, looking at her biography, it’s not clear what uniquely qualifies Bagley for this particular post. Like some other ambassadors, Bagley has excelled as a political donor.

Biden’s unwavering loyalty to Bagley, along with the Senate’s confirmation, signals that openly anti-Semitic statements no longer disqualify nominees for prominent positions of public trust. Such statements no longer require repudiation. Flimsy explanations are sufficient, as partisanship trumps moral guardrails.

As we mentioned in yesterday’s newsletter, Israeli special forces carried out a daring boots-on-the-ground raid on September 8 targeting the Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in northwestern Syria. The site was used for producing and storing missiles which are then transferred to Hizballah in Lebanon. Jonathan Spyer notes that the raid was accompanied by extensive airstrikes in Syira,and followed a few days later by extensive attacks on Hizballah in Lebanon, one of which killed Mohammad Qassem al-Shaer, a senior officer in the terrorist group’s Radwan force, an elite infantry group. And yesterday, the IDF destroyed a weapons depot, an observation post, and other Hizballah positions. Spyer puts these attacks in context:

The direct purpose of the raid, of course, was the destruction of the facilities and materials targeted. But Israel also appeared to be delivering a message to the Syrian regime that it should not imagine itself to be immune should it choose to continue its involvement with the Iran-led axis’s current campaign against Israel.

Similarly, the killing of al-Shaer indicated that Israel is no longer limiting its response to Hizballah attacks to the border area. Rather, Hizballah operatives in Israel’s crosshairs are now considered fair game wherever they may be located in Lebanon.

The SSRC raid and the killing of al-Shaer are unlikely to have been one-off events. Rather, they represent the systematic broadening of the parameters of the conflict in the north. Hizballah commenced the current round of fighting on October 8, in support of Hamas in Gaza. It has vowed to stop firing only when a ceasefire is reached in the south—a prospect which currently seems distant.