President Warren Harding is perhaps best known for the Teapot Dome Scandal, in which his secretary of the interior was sent to prison for having accepted bribes. He also appeared largely indifferent or even hostile to American Jewish interests; for example, he spearheaded the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, which sharply limited the number of Jewish immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Yet, as Saul Jay Singer explains, “his enthusiastic support for the Balfour Declaration . . . established an important precedent for American Zionism and played an important role in the birth of Israel.”

Soon after he succeeded Woodrow Wilson as president, [Harding] made it clear that he would unreservedly support Zionism and its lofty aims; in a July 1, 1921, correspondence, he wrote to the chairman of the Reception Committee of the Zionist Organization of America: “I want to add an expression of my most friendly interest in and for the Zionist movement. It is impossible for one who has studied at all the services of the Hebrew people to avoid the faith that they will one day be restored to their historical national home and then enter on a new and yet greater phase of their contribution to the advance of humanity.”

During an hour-long meeting with Harding at the White House on January 13, 1922, Nahum Sokolow, then the president of the executive committee of the World Zionist Congress, briefed the president on the persecution of East European Jews and updated him on settlement progress in Eretz Yisrael. The president reiterated his sympathy for Zionism and promised the further support of the United States government.

That summer, Harding won the hearts of many American Jews with a Rosh Hashana greeting that read:

The commemoration this year of Rosh Hashanah, the New Year [sic] day of the Jewish people, will mark the end of a year peculiarly notable in Jewish annals. It has seemed the definite assurance to the Jewish people that their long aspiration for re-establishment of Jewish nationality in the homeland of this great people is to be definitely realized. This is an event of notable significance, not only to the Jewish people but to their friends and well-wishers everywhere, among whom the American nation has always been proud to be numbered.

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.