The California department of education recently released a new model ethnic-studies curriculum, which might soon become mandatory for all high-school students in the state. Deeply influenced by the latest politically correct trends in the academy, the curriculum teaches that Irish and Jewish Americans, being white, have benefitted from “racial privilege.” As for the state’s large Persian Jewish community—a non-European minority group that fled persecution in its homeland and has become part of California’s fabric—it has no place at all, writes Karmel Melamed:

If the California department of education is indeed serious as well as sincere about being inclusive and making California students more sensitive to other ethnic groups in the state and country, then they [should] include the Iranian Jewish experience in facing anti-Semitism in Iran and the painful experiences of anti-Semitism the 850,000 Jews from the Arab and Islamic lands faced in the 20th century. How can you ignore the history of one of the largest Jewish communities living in California within your proposed school curriculum on ethnic studies?

If California’s lawmakers and policymakers are truly open-minded . . . about including all ethnic groups who have suffered in their new educational curriculum, then they cannot leave out the historical suffering of Iran’s Jews who are also proud Californians. I do not speak for all Iranian Jews living in California, but I am certain that if given an opportunity many of them would appear in large numbers for hearings before the State Legislature to voice their concerns about the state’s ethnic-studies model curriculum.

The [supposed] primary purpose of ethnic-studies curricula in public schools is to raise and educated the new generation of citizens to be more sensitive and more inclusive to all ethnic groups living in the state. Therefore, the state department of education has a duty to present [to students the] story of all groups—including the Jews from Iran and the Middle East—in their education for the next generation.

In September, Cypriot police narrowly foiled a plot by an Iranian agent to murder five Jewish businessman. This was but one of roughly a dozen similar operations that Tehran has conducted in Europe since 2015—on both Israeli or Jewish and American targets—which have left three dead. Matthew Karnitschnig traces the use of assassination as a strategic tool to the very beginning of the Islamic Republic, and explains its appeal:

In the West, assassination remains a last resort (think Osama bin Laden); in authoritarian states, it’s the first (who can forget the 2017 assassination by nerve agent of Kim Jong-nam, the playboy half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, upon his arrival in Kuala Lumpur?). For rogue states, even if the murder plots are thwarted, the regimes still win by instilling fear in their enemies’ hearts and minds. That helps explain the recent frequency. Over the course of a few months last year, Iran undertook a flurry of attacks from Latin America to Africa.

Whether such operations succeed or not, the countries behind them can be sure of one thing: they won’t be made to pay for trying. Over the years, the Russian and Iranian regimes have eliminated countless dissidents, traitors, and assorted other enemies (real and perceived) on the streets of Paris, Berlin, and even Washington, often in broad daylight. Others have been quietly abducted and sent home, where they faced sham trials and were then hanged for treason.

While there’s no shortage of criticism in the West in the wake of these crimes, there are rarely real consequences. That’s especially true in Europe, where leaders have looked the other way in the face of a variety of abuses in the hopes of reviving a deal to rein in Tehran’s nuclear-weapons program and renewing business ties.