After a closely contested election. Georgia will hold two run-off elections to select its senators, one of which pits the incumbent Kelly Loeffler against Raphael Warnock, a Baptist pastor. In a 2018 sermon, Warnock accused Israel of “shoot[ing] down unarmed Palestinian sisters and brothers like birds of prey, . . . like they don’t matter at all,” adding that “Black lives matter. Palestinian lives matter.” David Harsanyi doesn’t accept the defense that these words amount to mere “criticism” of the Jewish state:

Arguing that Israel hasn’t done enough to placate Fatah, [the party that controls the Palestinian Authority], is a criticism. Arguing that Israel’s refusal to return to 1967 boundaries is misguided is a criticism. Claiming that the Jewish state goes around picking off God’s children as if “they don’t matter at all” is . . . libel. It’s the kind of rhetoric that generates the anti-Semitism unfortunately found in some corners of black communities. It is also a complete fiction.

In a 2019 letter signed by Warnock, he also decries “the conditions in which Palestinian communities live,” claiming “the heavy militarization of the West Bank” was “reminiscent” of apartheid South Africa’s treatment of Namibia.

The propensity of liberal politicians to frame every policy issue or conflict as racially motivated is a sad reality of contemporary American politics. . . . The economic destitution of Palestinians is self-perpetuated by corruption, rigidity, and radicalism. Even the Arab League is slowly abandoning their cause. The notion that a wealthy liberal nation such as Israel, which signs peace agreements with any Arab country that engages, has an interest in keeping its neighbors poor is a complete fiction. The only faction in this quarrel arguing for ethnic partition is the one demanding a Jew-free West Bank.

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.”