In Here I Am, his new novel, Jonathan Safran Foer chronicles the unhappy and dissolving marriage of Jacob and Julia Bloch, two highly educated, upper-middle-class American Jews. In addition to finding the novel filled with “joyless prose about joyless people,” Alexander Nazaryan deems Foer’s attempt to write a profound work of American Jewish literature simultaneously kitschy and pretentious:

Because Here I Am concerns Jews and sex, comparisons with Philip Roth are inevitable. They are also misguided, in good part because Foer is less than half of Roth’s age and couldn’t possibly have the same preoccupations. Yet he tries, as if the responsibility of being a Jewish American novelist required of him protracted shows of thematic fealty to his miglior fabbro. For Roth, Judaism was substratum, a world to which he always returned but was never afraid to leave. . . . For Foer, it is a carapace into which he retreats whenever the fundamental business of writing fiction true to life surpasses his abilities of observation. . . . If kitsch has a “fairy-tale glow,” as Theodor Adorno once said, then Here I Am is positively radiant. . . .

About halfway through the novel, Foer swaps the plight of the Blochs for that of Israel. Israeli cousins come to visit Jacob; as they arrive in Washington, an earthquake rocks the Middle East, potentially leaving Israel weakened relative to its Arab neighbors. Passages about sexting are replaced by passages about the Palestinian issue. Call me prurient, but I preferred the sexting, especially since Foer’s depiction of Israelis seem as complex as that of You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, that little-remembered comedy in which Adam Sandler plays an Israeli soldier living as a hairdresser in Manhattan. Say what you will, at least Sandler tried for laughs. I haven’t a clue what Foer was trying for.

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.