The Islamic Republic of Iran likes to claim, at least to Western audiences, that it is opposed to Israel as a matter of policy and principle, but harbors no hostility toward Jews, and, moreover, that it’s 8,000 Jews enjoy tolerance and government protection and themselves want nothing to do with the “Zionist entity.” But that is a lie, as evidenced by the state-sponsored Center for Jewish Studies, which is quite unlike similarly named institutions in the West. After reading through many of the hundreds of articles the center publishes on its website, Behnam Gholipour reports:

In many of the texts published by this hate-filled website, Jews are presented as a “bloodthirsty,” “deviant” people who are guilty of “infanticide.” The site tries to present Israel and the Jewish people as one and the same, and claims “Israeli infanticide” is permitted in Judaism. One article claims that the roots of “child-killing” by Zionists in Palestine lies in the Old Testament, which “both the Jews and Christians believe in.”

Another article, filed under the category “Jewish Ethnic Traits,” explicitly calls “Jews and Judaism” perfect lab subjects for psychologists and psychiatrists to observe in order to verify their theories about pathological behavior in action. Echoing many Islamic Republic officials, another claims, “one of the most distinct characteristics of the Jews is their animosity towards religion and God, . . . even murdering divine prophets.”

In at least 30 articles, the Jewish Studies Center has tried to portray the Jewish people as promoters of corruption, drug trafficking, superstition, racism, and homosexuality around the world. . . . Several other articles . . . try to portray Jews as responsible, variously, for cancer, climate change, the production of weapons of mass destruction, bioterrorism, and efforts to alter humans genetically. In other words, they blame the Jews for every problem the world faces, and the ones it doesn’t.

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.