Much will be clarified in the coming weeks about how various political leaders, groups, and institutions respond to war between Israel and Hamas. In France, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the hard-right National Rally party, along with her number-two, issued strong statements of support for the Jewish state last week. Michel Gurfinkiel explains:

These are the most pro-Israel pronouncements both leaders have ever made. Marine’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded and led the National Front—the National Rally’s forerunner—managed to be at the same time an old-fashioned anti-Semite, a critic of Arab and Islamic immigration to France, and a close friend and supporter of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime.

When Marine Le Pen took over the National Front from him in 2011 and turned it into a more mainstream populist party, she repudiated anti-Semitism and ventured to express some sympathy for Israel, albeit in vague and ambivalent terms.

Clearly, the National Rally is now stepping up the tone. For one thing, its base is increasingly convinced that Israel and France have a single common enemy—radical Islam—and that what happens now in Israel, or what national defense policies Israel must resort to, is a blueprint for France’s short-term future.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.