Mideast desk: How Israel Should Hit Back
“The risks of escalation” if Israel responds to last weekend’s Iranian attack “are real,” warns The Jerusalem Post’s editorial board. “Yet, the cost of inaction might be higher, given Iran’s continued aggression and the progress in its nuclear program.” Israel’s “reaction must be interpreted not merely as a response to an isolated provocation but as a cornerstone of a comprehensive strategy aimed at maintaining regional stability and actively deterring” Tehran. It’s about “upholding international norms,” and “the necessary response from Israel should be robust and multi-dimensional, designed not only to neutralize the immediate threats posed by Iranian aggression but also to project an unambiguous message to both Iran and the international community.”
From the right: Iran Attack Changed Everything
“Iran’s assault” on Israel with drones and missiles “was extraordinary,” argues Judith Miller at City Journal. It was “the first time that Iran directly attacked Israel from Iranian soil” and “the first time Israel’s air defenses successfully protected the country from an attack involving hundreds of drones and missiles.” But in a “most unexpected and, to Israel, welcome development,” the Jewish state saw aid “possibly from Saudi Arabia and definitely from Jordan, the latter of which had publicly condemned Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza. Jordan’s assistance suggests that what Israelis and Americans are calling the Middle East’s ‘new security architecture’ — the strategic alliance of moderate Arab states and Israel against Iran and other members of the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ — may continue to expand.”
Libertarian: Rich Already Pay Their Fair Share
“After listening to President Joe Biden or looking at polls of the general public,” you might think Monday’s tax-filing deadline was “a holiday for America’s wealthiest,” contends Reason’s Eric Boehm, and that solving fiscal problems “is as easy as raising their taxes.” In fact, “the wealthiest Americans are now paying a higher share of federal taxes than at any time in the past 40 years.” The top 1% of earners contribute 46% of all income taxes, the most since 1980. The bottom 50% pay just 2.3%. “Demagoguery about taxing the rich might produce a political pay-off,” but it’s spawned a political culture “less well-equipped to tackle the serious questions about who should be paying what to cover the annual cost of our $7 trillion (and growing) federal government.”
Free-speech watch: Salman Rushdie’s Warning
On CBS’s “60 Minutes” this weekend, Salman Rushdie lamented that progressives reject “certain kinds of speech” because it “offends” this or that group. But it’s not just in America, observes UnHerd’s Tomiwa Owolade. For example, “the new Scottish hate crime law . . . claims to be in favour of tolerance, but is the very definition of intolerance.” In August 2022, Salman Rushdie was “nearly killed” in New York; the attack was a “vicious reminder of the death sentence imposed on Rushdie by the savage theocracy of Iran” after writing “The Satanic Verses.” Yes, “violence and intimidation still constitute the most severe threats to free speech globally,” but “this does not mean that other threats to freedom of expressions should be treated with indifference” — in America and elsewhere.
Election beat: Convention Woe for ‘Genocide Joe’
“These people cheer drones and missiles directed at Israel, chant ‘Death to America,’ and never blame Tehran or Hamas for anything,” huffs The Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn in describing pro-Palestinian activists planning to march on the Democratic National Convention in August. Despite President Biden’s initial strong response to the Hamas butcheries of Oct. 7, he’s “been sliding away from his own words ever since and moving closer to what the protesters want.” By contrast, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) takes the protesters “head on.” Unless Biden confronts the far left, the “anti-Israel protests in Chicago this summer will make him look even weaker.” As pollster Doug Schoen predicts, Biden’s failure to “forthrightly defend Israel” could well “cost the president and the Democrats a victory in November.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board