The Jewish co-chair of the Oxford University Labor Club has resigned over that organization’s increasing anti-Semitism. Responding, Simon Schama reflects on the resurfacing of the European left’s historical hatred of Jews and, in time, the Jewish state:

In the 19th century, . . . the left made its contribution to [modern anti-Semitism]. Demonstrating that you do not have to be Gentile to be an anti-Semite, Karl Marx characterized Judaism as nothing more than the cult of Mammon, and declared that the world needed emancipating from the Jews. Others on the left—the social philosophers Bruno Bauer, Charles Fourier, and Pierre Proudhon and the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin—echoed the message: bloodsucking, whether the physical or the economic kind, was what Jews did. . . .

The Communist Moses Hess, who had been Marx’s editor and friend, became persuaded, all too presciently, that the socialist revolution would do nothing to normalize Jewish existence, not least because so many socialists declared that emancipating the Jews had been a terrible mistake. Hess concluded that only self-determination could protect the Jews from the phobias of right and left alike. He became the first socialist Zionist. . . .

[Now, with] the collapse of the Soviet Union and the retreat of Marxist socialism around the world, militant energies have needed somewhere to go. The battle against inequalities under liberal capitalism has mobilized some of that passion, but postcolonial guilt has fired up the war against its prize whipping boy, Zionism, like no other cause. Every such crusade needs a villain along with its banners—and I wonder who that could possibly be?

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.”