Counterintuitive though it may seem, influential American intellectuals like the gender-studies philosopher Judith Butler and linguist-turned-propagandist Noam Chomsky see regressive Islamist groups like Hamas and Hizballah as “part of the global left”—a position shared by such political figures as Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn. Hussein Aboubakr argues that Butler and Chomsky, perhaps in ways they themselves don’t understand, are not far from the truth. For the past hundred years, Middle Eastern intellectuals have absorbed European ideological trends, from fascism to French existentialism to anticolonialism to postmodern leftism. None of them have been a salutary influence:

The ideological developments and transmutations [of the 20th-century Middle East] can be seen in the lives of many figures of the period such as Fayez Sayegh, who was the first Arab intellectual to apply Sartre’s critique of racism and neocolonialism to Israel. He argued that what applies in Congo and Vietnam also applied to Israel, and he was also the principal author of the 1975 UN Zionism-is-racism resolution. Sayegh, born in Syria to a Presbyterian minister in 1920, started his active life in the 1940s by joining the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), a Syrian imitation of Nazism under the leadership of the “Führer” Antun Saadeh. During the time Sayegh wrote and spoke for the SSNP about “the danger of Zionism on civilization and the soul,” as well as the dangers of the “Jewish psyche.”

After the turn to the left, Sayegh became an Arab existentialist authority on Sartre and Fanon. In 1965, during his tenure at Stanford, he wrote the booklet Colonialism in Palestine which was published by the PLO and then translated to a dozen of languages and distributed globally by the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization (AAPSO). His booklet was the birth document of the global cause for Palestine as it hit all the major notes played by the international left—racial supremacy, segregation, exclusion, civil rights, emancipation, anti-capitalism, self-defense, human rights, and resistance—invoked Algeria, African Americans, Congo, and Vietnam, and used existentialist ideas of otherness. It was Sayegh who inserted Palestine into the anti-Western canon of the international left. The later anti-Zionist works by major figures of the French left such as Maxime Rodinson would only continue Sayegh’s work.

The new textbooks, movies, magazines, songs, and literature produced in such an intellectual environment were all tasked with shaping the Arab masses and its new generations ideologically. This was the moment of birth of Arab modernity. Together, the committed new intellectuals and cultural figures produced an entirely committed revolutionary anti-Western and anti-Semitic reading of Islam.

On Yom Kippur, Hizballah fired over 200 rockets and drones at Israel, with one drone hitting a retirement home in Herzliya, miraculously without casualties. Yesterday, however, proved less lucky: a drone launched by the Iran-backed group struck a military base, killing four and injuring another 58, about twenty moderately or seriously.

This attack reflects Iranian strategy: Israeli defensive systems are strong, but so are Iranian drones and missiles, and with enough attacks some will get through. As Ariel Kahana writes, such an approach is consistent with Tehran’s desire to fight a war of attrition, denying Jerusalem the chance to strike a decisive blow. Kahana explains how the IDF might turn the tables:

It’s worth noting that Iran’s strategy of wearing down Israel and other U.S. allies in the region is not merely a choice, but a necessity. Militarily, it’s the only card left in Tehran’s hand. Iran neither desires nor possesses the capability to deploy ground forces against Israel, given the vast geographical distance and intervening countries. Moreover, while Israel boasts one of the world’s most formidable air forces, Iran’s air capabilities are comparatively limited.

Israel’s trump card in this high-stakes game is its unparalleled air-defense system. For years, Iran had counted on its network of proxy organizations to provide a protective umbrella against Western strikes. However, a year into the current conflict, this strategy lies in tatters: Hamas is reeling, Hizballah is on the back foot, and the various militias in Iraq and Yemen amount to little more than an irritant for Israel. The result? Iran finds itself unexpectedly exposed.

And when it comes to direct attacks on Israel, Iran’s options may be limited. Its October 1 attack, which used its sophisticated Fateh-2 missiles, was more effective than that in April, but not much more so:

Oded Eilam, drawing on his experience as a former senior Mossad official, . .  estimates [Iran’s] stockpile of these advanced weapons is limited to between 400 and 800. With 200 already expended in a single attack, Iran’s reserves of truly effective missiles may be running low. This raises a critical question: can Iran sustain a prolonged ballistic exchange with Israel? The numbers suggest it’s capacity for attrition warfare may be more limited than it would like to admit.