Although the murders of Jews in recent attacks in Paris and Copenhagen were clearly motivated by jihadist ideology, they were abetted, writes Emanuele Ottolenghi, by a deep-seated, European culture of Israel-related anti-Semitism:

Fanned by an obsessive and irrational hatred for Israel, a significant part of the progressive press and commentariat in Western Europe has laid the blame for unrest in the Middle East squarely at Israel’s door, often choosing to downplay, ignore, and effectively excuse Palestinian atrocities. Their near-monopoly over the press and airwaves has pushed the dial of public opinion accordingly.

[Europeans’] obsession with Israel has often led them to explain away physical and verbal abuse, or even murder, of their own Jewish citizens as a lamentable but understandable byproduct of Muslim and Arab rage at “Israeli policies.” Never mind that European Jews have no say in Israeli policies; never mind that no one would ever justify anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment on account of what Arab governments or Islamic movements perpetrate, daily, across Arab lands and the Islamic world; and never mind that Israeli policies are often milder, by comparison, than what Western governments do in similar circumstances.

While conventional wisdom in the Western press believes that the war with Hamas has left Jerusalem more isolated and scuttled chances of expanding the Abraham Accords, Gabriel Scheinmann points to a very different reality. He begins with Iran’s massive drone and missile attack on Israel last month, and the coalition that helped defend against it:

America’s Arab allies had, in various ways, provided intelligence and allowed U.S. and Israeli planes to operate in their airspace. Jordan, which has been vociferously attacking Israel’s conduct in Gaza for months, even publicly acknowledged that it shot down incoming Iranian projectiles. When the chips were down, the Arab coalition held and made clear where they stood in the broader Iranian war on Israel.

The successful batting away of the Iranian air assault also engendered awe in Israel’s air-defense capabilities, which have performed marvelously throughout the war. . . . Israel’s response to the Iranian night of missiles should give further courage to Saudi Arabia to codify its alignment. Israel . . . telegraphed clearly to Tehran that it could hit precise targets without its aircraft being endangered and that the threshold of a direct Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear or other sites had been breached.

The entire episode demonstrated that Israel can both hit Iranian sites and defend against an Iranian response. At a time when the United States is focused on de-escalation and restraint, Riyadh could see quite clearly that only Israel has both the capability and the will to deal with the Iranian threat.

It is impossible to know whether the renewed U.S.-Saudi-Israel negotiations will lead to a normalization deal in the immediate months ahead. . . . Regardless of the status of this deal, [however], or how difficult the war in Gaza may appear, America’s Arab allies have now become Israel’s.