The University of Michigan has recently announced that it seeks to hire a “bias incident-prevention and -response coordinator” whose job will entail the creation of “cultural appropriation-prevention initiatives.” In other words, it will be this individual’s job to decide under what circumstances white students taking yoga classes, or wearing hoop earrings, have committed that newly minted sin. Professor Fred Baumann responds with an open letter to the university’s president, Mark Schlissel:

It occurred to me . . . that the last official I know of whose job was to prevent cultural appropriation was Hans Hinkel. So who was he? When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, as you may know, every Jew in any cultural position was fired. My father was a young assistant director at the Berlin City Opera and he and his boss, Kurt Singer, also a Jew, lost their jobs. My father had the idea of telling the Nazis, “Okay, you say we’re a different culture; well then, you logically need to allow us to have our own cultural institutions.” Out of that came the Jewish Cultural League, which was headed by Singer, and was able to carry on Jewish cultural life with Jewish artists for Jewish audiences until after the beginning of the war.

My father directed operas but was also the “internal censor.” The man he worked with to make sure that the Nazis were okay with what was being performed and didn’t think the Jews were appropriating Aryan culture was a special commissioner for “cultural particulars” named Hans Hinkel. Now I gather you are taking up the same line of work. From Hinkel to Schlissel, or so it appears.

Unfair? Well, President Schlissel, it grieves me deeply that you seem to have so little memory of the past. . . . Cultural purism is folly and its genesis is invariably chauvinist and very often racist. So why, oh why, are you encouraging the rebirth of this hateful thing?

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.