On April 30, the German government ended its longstanding policy of recognizing a fictive distinction between Hizballah’s “military” and “political” wings. Beforehand, Berlin had banned the former, but allowed the latter entity to operate within its borders. Christoph Bernstiel, a German parliamentarian, urges the rest of Europe to follow his country’s example, and explains why:

Though Hizballah has so far not carried out any attacks on German soil, [it] is spreading violence and terror across the whole world—including the Muslim world—and exploiting Germany as a safe haven. Our security authorities have been keeping a close eye on the organization for some time. Numerous measures have been implemented in recent years to diminish Hizballah’s influence in Germany.

In 2014, a fundraising association claiming to be collecting donations for orphans in Lebanon was banned and dissolved, since the money raised was being channeled to a Hizballah “martyrs’ fund.”

[Berlin’s new] approach to Hizballah could be described as a correction of the course previously taken, in which it had endeavored for many years to act as a mediator in negotiations between Lebanon and the state of Israel. Hizballah wields a very strong influence on politics and society in Lebanon. Germany believed that readiness to engage in dialogue could help build stability there. Yet it became clear that Hizballah repeatedly exploited this willingness to make concessions in order to carry out attacks or plan terrorist activities. Germany therefore reached the conclusion that the time for negotiations and warnings had gone on long enough.

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.