Leading the much-ballyhooed “Women’s March” that took place in Washington in January, and the simultaneous marches in cities across the U.S., were four women who have since become the face of the progressive left in the U.S. In keeping with the current obsession with racial quotas, one is white, one black, one Hispanic, and one Arab. Bari Weiss notes that they share a fondness for bigots, especially of the anti-Semitic variety:

Start with [Linda] Sarsour, by far the most visible of the quartet of organizers. It turns out that this “homegirl in a hijab,” as one of many articles about her put it, has a history of disturbing views. . . . “Nothing is creepier than Zionism,” she wrote [on Twitter] in 2012. And, oddly, given her status as a major feminist organizer, there are more than a few statements that seem to make common cause with anti-feminists, like this from 2015: “You’ll know when you’re living under Shariah law if suddenly all your loans and credit cards become interest-free. Sound nice, doesn’t it?” She has dismissed the anti-Islamist feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the most crude and cruel terms. . . .

Largely overlooked have been the similarly outrageous statements of the march’s other organizers. Tamika Mallory, in addition to [joining Sarsour] in applauding [the convicted police-killer] Assata Shakur as a feminist emblem, also admires Fidel Castro, who sheltered Shakur in Cuba. . . . [Carmen] Perez also expressed her admiration for a Black Panther convicted of trying to kill six police officers.

But the public figure both [Mallory and Perez] regularly fawn over is Louis Farrakhan. On May 11, Mallory posted a photo [of herself] with her arm around Farrakhan—the eighty-four-year-old Nation of Islam leader notorious for his anti-Semitic comments—on Twitter and Instagram. “Thank God this man is still alive and doing well,” she wrote. It is one of several videos and photos and quotes that Mallory has posted of Farrakhan. . . .

Readers born after 1980 will probably have little idea [of Farrakhan], since he has largely remained out of the headlines since the Million Man March he organized in 1995. But his views . . . remain as appalling as ever. “And don’t you forget, when it’s God who puts you in the ovens, it’s forever!” he warned Jews in a speech at a Nation of Islam gathering in Madison Square Garden in 1985. . . . He called Hitler “a very great man” on national television. Judaism, he insists, is a “gutter religion.”

Yet, Weiss notes, even those progressives who find such sentiments and associations distasteful turn a blind eye to the dubious connections of their new leaders.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.