Medgar Evers College, a branch of the City University of New York (CUNY), has announced that, at its upcoming commencement ceremonies, it will grant an honorary doctorate to Reverend Al Sharpton—whose past incitements of anti-Semitic violence have led to multiple deaths. The editors of the New York Post comment:

What makes this [decision] especially galling is that it’s to take place in [the Brooklyn neighborhood of] Crown Heights, the site of the 1991 anti-Jewish riots in which Sharpton played a key role in riling up the mobs. The reverend has never apologized for his actions during those days, which included denunciations of Orthodox Jews as “diamond dealers” and a false claim that Jews operated an “apartheid ambulance service.”

Not until twenty years later did he finally admit he’d made some “mistakes,” while still claiming Jewish “extremists” deliberately misconstrued his remarks.

[L]ittle about Sharpton has changed over the years—save his weight, fancier clothes, fatter bank account, and now-national platform. Medgar Evers College thinks that adds up to an “unwavering commitment to racial, educational, and socioeconomic equity.” . . . But he isn’t a worthy choice for this honor—especially not from a college named for a true civil-rights hero who paid the ultimate price for his genuinely “unwavering commitment” to racial justice.

Sharpton is also expected to speak at a conference sponsored by the Religious Action Center, a major arm of organized Reform Judaism in America, in May.

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.