Since 2015, when Jonathan Greenblatt, a veteran of the Obama administration, took over the helm of the Antidefamation League (ADL), the organization has increasingly aligned itself with the Democratic party and has made a habit of displaying its progressive bona fides. Yet a coalition of hard-left and anti-Israel organizations has launched a coordinated campaign against the ADL, based in part on the libelous claim that it is somehow responsible for the killing George Floyd. Jonathan Tobin comments on the ADL’s response:

You would think a well-funded mainstream liberal Jewish organization like the ADL would . . . dismiss [these] smears . . . with contempt. . . . Instead, the ADL’s response [has been] defensive in nature. It seems to be as worried about being labeled as insufficiently “progressive” to be considered a worthy ally for left-wing groups as it is eager to fire back at those who have singled it out for opprobrium.

The episode is an interesting commentary on why cancel culture, which has become a dominant force in American public life . . . is such an effective tool. . . . Conservatives and moderates don’t care about the imprecations of extremists. . . . The most vulnerable targets for canceling are liberals who crave the good opinion of their tormentors.

[T]he ADL understands that there is a price to be paid for being judged as not woke enough to pass muster in the bizarro universe of the contemporary left, where intersectional myths about Zionism being aligned with Jim Crow racism are accepted as truths.

That doesn’t mean Jews shouldn’t join in condemning the anti-ADL effort. The campaign should be viewed as an effort to silence all Jews and supporters of the Jewish state. But this is also an object lesson about the futility of liberal attempts to appease radicals. No matter how much the ADL attacks President Trump and Republicans, it will never be enough for the intersectional left to grant it a pass for not completely disavowing Israel.

While conventional wisdom in the Western press believes that the war with Hamas has left Jerusalem more isolated and scuttled chances of expanding the Abraham Accords, Gabriel Scheinmann points to a very different reality. He begins with Iran’s massive drone and missile attack on Israel last month, and the coalition that helped defend against it:

America’s Arab allies had, in various ways, provided intelligence and allowed U.S. and Israeli planes to operate in their airspace. Jordan, which has been vociferously attacking Israel’s conduct in Gaza for months, even publicly acknowledged that it shot down incoming Iranian projectiles. When the chips were down, the Arab coalition held and made clear where they stood in the broader Iranian war on Israel.

The successful batting away of the Iranian air assault also engendered awe in Israel’s air-defense capabilities, which have performed marvelously throughout the war. . . . Israel’s response to the Iranian night of missiles should give further courage to Saudi Arabia to codify its alignment. Israel . . . telegraphed clearly to Tehran that it could hit precise targets without its aircraft being endangered and that the threshold of a direct Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear or other sites had been breached.

The entire episode demonstrated that Israel can both hit Iranian sites and defend against an Iranian response. At a time when the United States is focused on de-escalation and restraint, Riyadh could see quite clearly that only Israel has both the capability and the will to deal with the Iranian threat.

It is impossible to know whether the renewed U.S.-Saudi-Israel negotiations will lead to a normalization deal in the immediate months ahead. . . . Regardless of the status of this deal, [however], or how difficult the war in Gaza may appear, America’s Arab allies have now become Israel’s.