While proposed judicial reforms plunged the Jewish state into fierce political debate and social unrest last month, President Biden along with several senior members of his administration did not hesitate to voice their opinions. Elliott Abrams contrasts this active rhetorical intervention to Washington’s apparent indifference to a similarly intense political imbroglio in France, and notes several reasons, “all political and all worrying,” for the discrepancy. Among them is that “a Democratic administration will criticize what it views as right-wing governments and leaders in other countries.”

Another is the behavior of figures on the Israeli political left:

American intervention has been invited by many Israelis fighting against the judicial reform. They’ve invited it through their rhetoric, by saying that this American friend and ally was on the verge of fascism. . . . The opposition leader Yair Lapid spoke of a “journey towards destroying Israeli democracy.” All of them spoke in English to U.S. audiences, and in the demonstrations in Israel many signs were in English as well—all to appeal for the intervention of American Jews and the United States government.

In private, numerous Israeli leaders and commentators explicitly asked for American intervention, arguing that Israelis had reached a dead end and had to be saved from themselves. Such conversations, and the picture of an Israel about to collapse into a dark tyranny, no doubt had their effect on Biden and his administration.

This is a dangerous precedent. . . . Those on the left—whether Israelis opposing the judicial reforms or Americans wanting to throw Washington’s weight around because their side didn’t win Israel’s most recent elections—should realize first that two can play the same game. It isn’t hard to imagine a conservative Republican president in the United States and a left-of-center prime minister in Israel serving at the same time. Will conservative Americans henceforth demand intervention in Knesset votes, or in Israeli elections, because some proposed policies are strongly opposed on the right?

As Israel approaches its 75th birthday in just a few weeks, one must wonder what those who cultivate American interference think of the Zionist project. Are Israelis to be “masters of their own fate” (in Ben-Gurion’s words) except when election losers can coax the United States government to jump into the fray? Is Israel to have a kind of compromised sovereignty that is subject to American whims?

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.