In a July 30 speech, a member of a far-right French Catholic organization opined that his country went astray in 1791, when the Revolutionary government voted to extend civil rights to Jews. Among those rushing to condemn the speaker was Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of France’s far-left party. Mélenchon, however, is himself one of the most prominent anti-Semites in French politics. Ben Cohen writes:

In 2013, [Mélenchon] accused then-Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, who is Jewish, of no longer “thinking in French but thinking in the language of international finance.” Later in that same decade, when Mélenchon’s comrade in the United Kingdom—the former Labor party leader Jeremy Corbyn—was in the firing line over a series of anti-Semitic scandals during his tenure at the party’s helm, the French leader asserted that “so-called Jews” orchestrated by the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu were out to destroy Corbyn’s reputation.

In essence, anti-Semitism is not seen [by the likes of Mélenchon] as a pernicious ideology targeting Jews as the root of the world’s ills, but rather as an instrument to be deployed in political conflicts. If anti-Semitism comes from a source that you would have no truck with anyway—in this case, an organization that believes fervently that Catholic doctrine should lie at the foundations of law and public policy—then there is no hesitation in condemning it, particularly when . . . there is no mention of Zionism or the state of Israel. But if anti-Semitism comes from an ally, like Corbyn, then you are duty-bound to deny it and dismiss it as a smear.

In such an environment, any analytical consistency and certainly any attempt to point out the glaring overlap between far-left and extreme-right anti-Semitic tropes—dual loyalty, financial clout, disproportionate political and cultural influence—becomes impossible.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.