According to the late Leo Strauss, some of the West’s greatest devotees of philosophical truth and reason encoded their beliefs in hints, irony, and deliberate self-contradiction, interpretable only by those initiated into the art of esoteric reading. In Philosophy between the Lines, Arthur Melzer musters empirical evidence that, from Plato to Montesquieu, central Western thinkers really did employ that method of writing. Commenting on the implications of Melzer’s analysis for today’s academic infatuation with postmodernism, deconstruction, and cultural relativism, Francis Fukuyama writes:

Many contemporary inhabitants of liberal democratic societies are perfectly comfortable with relativism because they think that it encourages toleration and liberal politics. The opposite of relativism, after all, is absolutism (is it not?)—the arrogant and potentially tyrannical belief that there is only one truth. . . . But as Melzer points out, the postmodernist project is itself incoherent and self-undermining. If all beliefs are equally true or historically contingent, if the belief in reason is simply an ethnocentric Western prejudice, then there is no superior moral position from which to judge even the most abhorrent practices—as well as, of course, no epistemological basis for postmodernism itself. . . .

The recovery of the rationalist project was central to Strauss’s life work—not the dogmatic reason of the Enlightenment, but rather the more skeptical version presented by Plato and Aristotle, a version less abstract and more embedded in the ordinary reality that humans perceived. But before there could be a return to that tradition, it had to be elucidated and rescued from centuries of accrued misinterpretation. This was why esotericism was so central to Strauss’s project: you could not understand the original effort to enthrone reason if you couldn’t read these earlier authors correctly.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.