In a wide-ranging interview with Megyn Kelly, the Mosaic contributor and former New York Times editor Bari Weiss discusses, inter alia, the intolerant attitudes of the “woke” left to any challenges to its ever-evolving orthodoxies—and toward Jews and the Jewish state. Weiss recounts hearing that one colleague at the Times had asked another, in a mocking tone, “Is Bari Weiss writing about the Jews again?”—noting that such a comment would be “unfathomable” if it were made about a member of just about any other minority group. Eventually she left the publication after months of harassment. Around the 52-minute mark, the conversation turns more specifically to the thin line between so-called anti-racism and anti-Semitism, and the ways that the state of Israel has been turned into a symbol of evil. (Audio, 101 minutes.)

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.