Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s recent visit to Israel was about more than improving economic ties between the two countries. Omer Dostri explains:

Since Abe came to power, Japan has undergone a process of changing its foreign policy, especially regarding its relationship with Israel. . . . Japan is turning toward more assertive and active policies when it comes to foreign relations, and it is interested in taking on a central role in the local and global arenas. . . .

These changes were made as tensions with China grew in the background, especially with regard to the ongoing conflict over the disputed islands in the East China Sea. Added to that tension is the nuclear threat against Japan from North Korea. These threats draw Japan closer to Israel on a strategic level, because, like Japan, Israel is threatened by a country racing to achieve nuclear military capability and is challenged by predatory neighboring countries, even if they are not in the same geographic area.

Israel will likely respond directly against Iran after yesterday’s attack, and has made known that it will calibrate its retaliation based not on the extent of the damage, but on the scale of the attack. The specifics are anyone’s guess, but Edward Luttwak has a suggestion, put forth in an article published just hours before the missile barrage: cut off Tehran’s ability to send money and arms to Shiite Arab militias.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. . . . In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometers from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeida in Yemen—a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again [on Sunday].