A right-wing terrorist attempting a massacre in the German city of Halle on Yom Kippur found the targeted synagogue undefended by the police—although another attempted synagogue attack had taken place elsewhere in Germany just a few days beforehand. The police were also slow to respond once the attack began. Afterward, members of the two political parties that form the governing coalition responded by blaming not anti-Semites or ineffective security measures but their political rival—the right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD). Manfred Gerstenfeld writes:

The AfD is not a homogeneous party. It has both a mainstream and a highly problematic “ethnic” wing. . . . The political attacks on the AfD backfired. The AfD spokeswoman on anti-Semitism is also deputy chairwoman, Beatrix von Storch, who belongs to the party’s mainstream. In the Bundestag, the German parliament, she raised a number of unwelcome facts for the established parties and in particular for the Social-Democratic party (SPD).

Von Storch pointed out that violent neo-Nazi groups have existed for decades in Germany. Their ability to establish themselves showed the total failure of the established parties in domestic and security policy. The same was true concerning Islamists, left-wing extremists, and [organized crime]. Her remarks were accurate and are yet another indication of the dysfunctional state of law in Germany’s liberal democracy. Von Storch recalled that left-wing extremists had in 1969 laid a bomb at the Jewish community center in Berlin. They were also responsible for the terror attack on the Air France flight that was hijacked to Entebbe, Uganda in 1976. She also mentioned the murder of Israeli athletes by Arab terrorists at the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics.

Von Storch then attacked the SPD, saying that while criticism of Islam is a reason for it to expel somebody from the party, anti-Semitism is not. She noted that the former SPD leader and [current] foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel has defamed Israel as an apartheid state. Von Storch also attacked the former SPD leader Martin Schulz, who repeated before the Knesset the lie that Israel let the Palestinians [routinely] die of thirst. She noted that the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier (also of the SPD), congratulated Iran on the anniversary of the Islamic revolution, and reminded her listeners that that revolution is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.

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.