Speaking at an event on Monday organized by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Hank Johnson, a congressman from Georgia, likened Jewish residents of the West Bank to termites. After being rebuked rather tepidly by the Anti-Defamation League, he responded via Twitter with something less than an apology, as David Wolpe writes:

This was [Johnson’s] tweet: “Poor choice of words—apologies for offense. Point is settlement activity continues [to] slowly undermine [the] two-state solution.” The ADL [replied] that they “appreciate” his clarification. That would have been far more convincing had the congressman apologized, but he did not. To apologize for “offense” is to say you are sorry that someone else feels the way they do. That is not an apology. “I am sorry I said something stupid and anti-Semitic”—that would have been a fitting apology.

These are not trivial issues. We are a half-century away from millions of human beings who were designated as “vermin” and killed. . . . To call Jews “termites” is base and vile.

You don’t know a good person by the fact that they never say anything objectionable. . . . But good people will be horrified when they realize what they have said. They will not apologize for someone else’s taking offense, but for their own insensitivity and cruelty.

That is what the congressman should have done. That is what he, pointedly, did not do. Draw your own conclusion.

Postscript: Yesterday evening, Wolpe announced that “Hank Johnson reached out to me and offered a full apology for the language, the imagery, and the hurt he caused.” Johnson also sent the ADL a tweet reading “I sincerely apologize for the offensive analogy. Period.”

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.