For those Jews who pride themselves on their rejection of the state of Israel, or in their commitment to condemning its supposed sins, the events of October 7 came as a brutal shock—despite the fact that Hamas has been telegraphing, and acting on, its intentions since its formation. Jewish anti-Zionists were also taken aback by the willingness of so many radical leftists to cheer on the massacre. Shany Mor takes a closer look at the responses of those he terms “Oedipal Jews.”

For all their furrowed brows and trendy glasses, this group never had a serious grasp on the situation in the Middle East. . . . What they did have were two things that were the foundation of their entire con. First, an unquenchable need to be liked by the cool kids of the radical left, and second a distended feeling of superiority toward the Jewish community they came from.

The disappointment they felt could have been an opportunity to face the difficult questions of how they got it all so wrong. But true to form, their agonizing [social-media] threads about the left “losing its values” or just not being able to “handle” the discussion focused only on their own feelings and not on the events that happened, the ideologies that motivated them, or how people who fashion themselves as pinnacles of sophistication could be so blindsided by reality in both southern Israel and Williamsburg.

Certainly absent from any of the indulgent online self-help was a reckoning with their own role in the intellectual ecosystem that produced the voices they came to be so shocked by. . . . A politics that begins from the no-doubt-harrowing experience of being lied to at summer camp doesn’t merit being taken seriously anymore—and probably never did.

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.