In a recently publicized interview, Andrew Murray—an adviser to the former leader of the British Labor party Jeremy Corbyn—was asked about the politician’s apparent hostility toward Jews. Murray responded that Corbyn “is very empathetic, . . . but he’s empathetic with the poor, the disadvantaged, the migrant, the marginalized, the people at the bottom of the heap. . . . But, of course, the Jewish community today is relatively prosperous.” That, writes David Herman, sums up the essence Laborite anti-Semitism:

If you take anything [Corbyn] says about Jews and apply it to any other community in Britain it would sound appalling. And this is exactly what so many people in the British media have failed to do. They have rarely asked themselves how they would react if Corbynistas spoke this way about black, Asian, or Middle Eastern people.

For centuries anti-Semites have associated Jews with money, banking, and usury. Think of Shylock, . . . the Jew of Malta (his “usury” is said to “fill the gaols with bankrupts in a year”), Dickens’s Fagin, and Trollope’s mysterious banker Augustus Melmotte. Murray is just playing that age-old nasty game. Jews would be OK if it weren’t for all that money.

But, of course, Corbyn’s anti-Semitism was never just about money. There was Israel, his long-time association with Holocaust deniers, terrorists, Hamas and Hizballah. . . . What was so striking about Corbyn’s obsession with Jews and anti-Semitism is that it prevented him from seeing the bigger issues in British politics and taking a clear line on the biggest issue of all: Brexit.

Almost a year after Corbyn’s crushing defeat in December, anti-Semitism still haunts Labor.

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.