During Bill de Blasio’s tenure, New York City has seen attacks on visibly Orthodox Jews become a near-daily occurrence that the mayor has had little success in curbing. One reason for this failure, argue Philip Klein and Seth Mandel, is his stubborn conviction that, as he put it in a speech last year, “the ideological movement that is anti-Semitic is the right-wing movement.”

De Blasio’s failed leadership is an example of the real-world danger of trying to explain anti-Semitism as merely the [product] of one side of the political spectrum. By narrowly defining anti-Semitism as a far-right problem that has suddenly bubbled up under President Trump, liberals and their allies in the media are not only spreading misinformation but are making it more difficult to address a complex and growing crisis seriously. Failing to understand that anti-Semitism comes in many forms is one reason why rising violence against Jews has been able to fester and grow.

Unfortunately, de Blasio’s effort to explain anti-Semitism as merely right-wing does not make him unique. As anti-Semitism has reared its ugly head, liberals have gone out of their way to categorize it in a way that fits neatly with their partisan interests.

Senator Bernie Sanders, whose campaign has provided a safe haven to anti-Semites of the left, argued that the spike in anti-Semitic attacks nationwide was “a result of a dangerous political ideology that targets Jews and anyone who does not fit a narrow vision of a whites-only America.” One of Sanders’s prized endorsements came from Representative Ilhan Omar, who has brought anti-Semitic conspiracies about all-powerful Jewish puppet masters to the halls of Congress.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”