Having lived in Britain for much of his life, Jonathan Foreman wasn’t surprised that the current war in Gaza prompted anti-Israel protests and the like. But even he was surprised by their intensity, the fact that they began immediately after the October 7 massacres (rather than after the IDF’s military response), and the way they have drawn in people like his middle-aged neighbors, who on October 10 hung Palestinian flags and banners outside their house:

This felt different, more disturbing. My neighbors—the wealthy, white, haut-bourgeois banner-hangers—were, whether they would admit it or not, celebrating October 7, rejoicing in the targeting of civilians for rape, murder, and mutilation, cheering the murder of Jews for being Jews.

Every Saturday since 10/7, London has endured large anti-Israel demonstrations. At each one, students, Palestine-obsessives, Islamists, and hard-left extremists march shoulder to shoulder with tens of thousands of people from Britain’s Arab and Muslim communities. They wind their way from Parliament through central London to the Israeli embassy in Kensington, where police in riot gear keep them back from the gates. As in past years, some of the demonstrators let off flares, scream anti-Jewish slogans, and break various minor laws that the police choose not to enforce.

As British Jews have begun to realize, it is only a small step from these kinds of selective inaction by the police to turning a blind eye to the beatings of Jews in the street, Weimar-style—if carried out by passionate young men from certain highly sensitive communities. It would be a different story if the assailants came from the miniscule “far right.”

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.