Last week, Pamela Geller organized a “Draw Mohammed” contest that was unsuccessfully attacked by two terrorists. (Islamic State claimed responsibility.) A subsequent Washington Post headline declared: “Event organizer offers no apology after thwarted attack in Texas”—as if the intended victim of a terrorist attack should be required to apologize. Rich Lowry comments:

[I]t is no more legitimate to shoot someone for drawing Mohammed than it is to shoot a girl for going to school, or a Copt or a Shiite Muslim for his or her faith. Expecting apologies from these victims would be almost as perverse as expecting one from Pamela Geller.

Respectable opinion can’t bear the idea that she has become a symbol of free speech, which once upon a time was—and still is, when convenient—one of the highest values of the media and the left. If Geller were a groundbreaking pornographer like the loathsome Larry Flynt, someone would already be planning a celebratory biopic of her life. If she were a gadfly sticking it to a major Western religion rather than to Islam, she might be considered more socially acceptable. . . .

Scurrilous and even hateful speech and cartoons—sometimes involving religion—have been featured in Anglo-American history going back centuries. They are an inevitable part of a free society. In this context, a drawing of Mohammed is mild. The only reason it seems different is that some Muslim radicals are willing to kill over it. Which is exactly why Pamela Geller’s event wasn’t purposeless. The event was placing a stake in contested ground, in a way it wouldn’t have if it had offended Quakers or Roman Catholics, who don’t massacre people who insult them. It was a statement of defiance, of an unwillingness to abide by the rules of fanatics. . . .

For better or worse, we live in a society in which nothing is sacred. If we are to accept the assassin’s veto, the only exception (for now) will be depictions of Mohammed, which would be perverse. A free society can’t let the parameters of its speech be set by murderous extremists.

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.