On October 22, a French-Chechen Muslim beheaded a schoolteacher in a Paris suburb for showing cartoons of Mohammad. Since then, there have been several other acts of terror in France. (It is not yet clear, as of this writing, whether last night’s murderous attack near a Vienna synagogue is related.) Meanwhile, Islamist leaders around the world have responded with further incitement. Jonathan Michanie urges the West to stand firm:

Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that Emmanuel Macron’s [condemnation of Islamic extremism is] comparable to [the behavior] of the Nazi party during the 1930s and to the propaganda preceding the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica. Putting their geopolitical disputes aside, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted in solidarity: “Why is it a crime to raise doubts about the Holocaust? Why should anyone who writes about such doubts be imprisoned while insulting the Prophet (pbuh) is allowed?” It should be noted that neither of these leaders condemned the brutal murder of [the schoolteacher]—condoning and excusing terrorism is nothing out of the ordinary for these regimes.

Similar condemnations of the French government were made by the Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan, . . . and on October 29, Malaysia’s ex-prime minister claimed that “Muslims have a right to kill millions of French people,” [even if they have demonstrated admirable restraint in not exercising this right].

[Such] rhetoric is not just an assault on Western values, but [also] serves as ammunition for the atrocious human-rights violations that are being carried out by these extremist regimes.

[I]mmediate and harsh targeted sanctions need to be placed on Iranian, Turkish, and Pakistani officials. Every antagonizing action by these radical regimes will not only perpetuate the human-rights abuses they are carrying out but will weaken the West’s ability to deter the rising aggression by Islamic authoritarian regimes. Silence and complacency are not an option.

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.