Until the last quarter of the 18th century, Jews were forbidden from settling in Russia. After the tsarist empire acquired a large Jewish population, it subjected it to discriminatory legislation until its final days. The Kremlin’s current attempt to shut down the Russian branch of the Jewish Agency, to Ben Cohen, is a sign that it is reverting to form after a post-Soviet hiatus from official anti-Semitism:

The court where the case against the Jewish Agency was filed—the Basmanny District Court—has become the emblem, as far as Russian dissidents are concerned, of the politicization of the country’s judicial system. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s wealthiest man until Russian President Vladimir Putin came gunning for him in 2005, even coined the term “Basmanny justice” to describe the woefully compromised state of the Russian judiciary. And “Basmanny justice” is no doubt what lies in store for the Jewish Agency.

Since the onset of the Russian invasion [of central Ukraine], the regime in Moscow has been increasingly disappointed by the Israeli government’s diplomatic and humanitarian support for Ukraine, and it cannot fail to have noticed the large pro-Ukrainian demonstrations that have been staged in Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. Anti-Semitism has also crept back into Russian discourse, most notably through Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s infamous statement that Hitler had “Jewish blood”—itself a cry of frustration that most Israelis regard Russia’s demonization of Ukraine’s elected government as “neo-Nazis” with the contempt it deserves.

Over the last year, anti-Semitism has reappeared in the statements of the Russian elite. An article published last October by the former Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, excoriated the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky for masquerading as a Ukrainian when he is really an Ashkenazi Jew. Meanwhile, the ideologue of “Eurasianism”—Alexander Dugin, a Russian political philosopher, analyst, and strategist known for his ultra-nationalist views [and his closeness to Putin]—is well-known for arguing that Jews can essentially be divided into “good” and “bad” categories. Observant Jews who live as quiet, loyal citizens are acceptable, in Dugin’s view. The rest are not.

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.”