Despite its allegedly immense power, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) failed to influence the president’s pursuit of the Iran deal, and also appears unable to rally sufficient opposition to it in Congress. By contrast, the much less well known National Iranian American Council (NIAC) has played an important behind-the-scenes role in orchestrating and campaigning for the deal. Lee Smith explains:

[NIAC’s founder Trita] Parsi deserves lots of credit for his victory, but he can’t cash his checks too publicly—because the American public doesn’t like Iran. Which in turn points up a major difference between the pro-Israel lobby and the pro-Iran lobby—both of which . . . make entirely legitimate use of the American democratic system to advocate for their respective points of view. Where NIAC differs from AIPAC is in its relation to American public opinion. . . . The pro-Iran lobby, [unlike the pro-Israel lobby], has no real base of popular support in America. . . .

One of the chief ironies of the ongoing debate over the Iran deal is that both defenders and detractors of a supposedly all-powerful “Israel lobby” have been wasting their breath over an entity that has notably failed to affect U.S. policy on a single issue of major concern over the entire course of Barack Obama’s six-year presidency—a record of unmitigated failure that would clearly condemn it to the black hole of Beltway irrelevance if not for the bizarre imaginative hold, and political utility, of the myth of a powerful conspiracy of Jews who secretly rule the planet.

Or perhaps it’s not an irony at all. Some of the loudest detractors of the “Israel lobby” are in fact paid staffers and partisans of the Iran lobby—an entity that, unlike the Israel lobby, has succeeded in radically altering U.S. foreign policy, with the help of the president and his advisers. Seen from a certain angle, the Iran lobby has pulled off the neat trick of using the specter of the Israel lobby to shift U.S. policy away from Israel and toward Iran—while actually succeeding at the same dark arts that it blames the Jews for employing. The Iran lobby used a combination of lobbying, donations, propaganda, and back-door personal connections to top policy-makers to . . . alter American foreign policy and align the United States with an oppressive authoritarian regime that is destabilizing the Middle East.

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.