Last week, Spain’s second deputy prime minister, celebrating her country’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state, declared that “we can’t stop here. Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.” Supporters of Israel have reacted to Spain’s decisions with invocations of Inquisition. Others have suggested that Jerusalem respond to Madrid’s recent move by recognizing the independence of Catalonia, a region with a powerful and sometime violent separatist movement. Alberto M. Fernandez believes that such reactions misunderstand the motivations of Spain’s current government:

The ruling leftist/far-left/Catalan- and Basque-separatist coalition in Spain is in favor of Catalan independence, is soft on Islamic rule in Spain, and is reliably anti-Catholic. It is the left in Spain that wants to allow Islamic prayers in the Cathedral-Mosque in Cordoba. It is the left in Spain that encourages illegal immigration from Muslim countries into Spain, a kind of counter-Reconquista. . . . The separatist rulers in Catalonia have welcomed Islamic migration, and even the spread of Salafism in their region, as long as the new arrivals don’t commit the cardinal sin of speaking Spanish, [as opposed to Catalan].

Spain has the most left-wing government in Europe, the only one with actual hardcore Communists in it. . . . Spain is important in this equation because the left is already in power and it is perhaps a model for progressive foreign policy that we may see more often in the West as demographics change and as the left is pressured by both its own far-left wing and by a rising populist right.

As important as all this is to understanding the present direction of Spain and Europe, and shaping the appropriate Israeli response, I still don’t think it’s possible to disconnect this anti-Israel passion from the country’s long history of anti-Semitism, even if it comes from the anti-clerical left rather than supporters of the church and the crown. Such deep-seated ways of thinking about Jews don’t fade easily, and can certainly prime people, regardless of their political leanings, to think about the Jewish state in demonic terms.

Steve Witkoff, the American special envoy leading negotiations with the Islamic Republic, has sent mixed signals about his intentions, some of them recently contradicted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Michael Doran looks at the progress of the talks so far, and explains why he fears that they could result in an even worse version of the 2015 deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA):

This new deal will preserve Iran’s latent nuclear weapons capabilities—centrifuges, scientific expertise, and unmonitored sites—that will facilitate a simple reconstitution in the future. These capabilities are far more potent today than they were in 2015, with Iran’s advances making them easier to reactivate, a significant step back from the JCPOA’s constraints.

In return, President Trump would offer sanctions relief, delivering countless billions of dollars to Iranian coffers. Iran, in the meantime, will benefit from the permanent erasure of JCPOA snapback sanctions, set to expire in October 2025, reducing U.S. leverage further. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps will use the revenues to support its regional proxies, such as Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis, whom it will arm with missiles and drones that will not be restricted by the deal.

Worse still, Israel will not be able to take action to stop Iran from producing nuclear weapons:

A unilateral military strike . . . is unlikely without Trump’s backing, as Israel needs U.S. aircraft and missile defenses to counter Iran’s retaliation with drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles—a counterattack Israel cannot fend off alone.

By defanging Iran’s proxies and destroying its defenses, Israel stripped Tehran naked, creating a historic opportunity to end forever the threat of its nuclear weapons program. But Tehran’s weakness also convinced it to enter the kind of negotiations at which it excels. Israel’s battlefield victories, therefore, facilitated a deal that will place Iran’s nuclear program under an undeclared but very real American protective shield.