Last week, the White House—to its credit—released a 60-page strategy for combatting anti-Semitism, a step unlike anything undertaken by previous administrations. But the document studiously avoids adopting the standard guidelines for identifying anti-Semitism endorsed by the Antidefamation League, the World Jewish Congress, and other mainstream Jewish organizations. The editors of the New York Sun comment:

The administration feints at moral clarity, acknowledging that the “most prominent” definition of anti-Semitism is the one adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. (IHRA), which the United States has “embraced.” The government of Germany, for crying out loud, has endorsed it. For America, though, it is a grudging first among equals. It’s given hardly a ringing, or any, endorsement. That’s a dodge. The issue, of course, is Israel.

The IHRA labels as anti-Semitic “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” by “claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor” and “applying double standards” to the Jewish state by “requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” It recognizes that anti-Semitism is an inherent feature, not a bug, of anti-Zionism. The Jewish state and the state of the Jews are intertwined.

But the White House document goes on to state that it “welcomes and appreciates” the rival definition of anti-Semitism known as the Nexus Document, which takes pains to defend hatred of Israel.

[I]f Nexus is true on its face then the IHRA definition can’t be true—and vice versa. So by letting Nexus through the door, President Biden negates the first endorsement and makes kosher a range of the attacks on Israel from the left. . . . With friends of the Nexus approach numbering the [Hamas-linked] Council on American-Islamic Relations—they are acknowledged by the administration in an accompanying “fact sheet” that lists those who contributed to its efforts—who needs enemies?

One sage with whom we spoke, Ruth Wisse, makes the point that it’s not all that complicated. She calls the administration’s strategy an “attempt to misdirect anti-Semitism so that you are justified in not dealing with it” and an example of “fighting yesterday’s war” at a time when anti-Zionism is the “great unifier” among those hostile to Jews. “Iran intends to destroy the state of Israel,” she observes. “What are we talking about?”

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.