It seems clear that there is a lot more to the current developments regarding Syria than Israel’s bombing some sites there, though staunching the flow of Iranian weapons to Hizbullah through Syria is plainly a significant objective.

Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent embrace of the Arab Peace Initiative is, to say the least, unnerving. Certainly the response of Arab leaders to his action reflects the dangers for Israel inherent in the plan. President Obama seems to be preoccupied these days with Syria and Iran as well as serious domestic issues and is largely leaving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Mr. Kerry. But the secretary of state seems poised to roil things up without any prospect of real progress.

Syria’s civil war is fast becoming one of the Obama administration’s greatest foreign policy challenges, for the moment even surpassing Iran’s march toward nuclear weaponry in its urgency. Together, both issues have effectively derailed the president’s long-range intention to focus on Asia and the emerging economic and military developments in China and other nations in the so-called Asian Pivot.

The investigation into the Boston bombings is still in its early stages but what seems to be emerging is that the presumed perpetrators were not directly linked to any foreign terrorist infrastructure. Rather, they were individual Americans radicalized by jihadist teachings and guided in their weapons-making by jihadist websites.

During the run-up to the confirmations of Secretary of State Kerry and Secretary of Defense Hagel, we and others forcefully challenged the latter over statements he had made about Iran and Israel, and were more favorably inclined toward the former.

This week Jews around the world celebrated Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Israel Independence Day. Sixty-five years ago on the day before the British mandate over Palestine was set to expire, the Jewish People’s Council, comprised of the political leadership of the Jewish residents of Palestine, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel.