The nominally pro-Israel lobbying group J Street recently claimed that on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program, 84 percent of American Jews favor Obama over Netanyahu. However, writes Ben Cohen, the statistic is a mendacious distortion of the actual data—one that says something about the group and its mission:

After being called out [over its claim], J Street trotted out a three-month poll it conducted in which 84 percent of respondents said they would support a deal that would prevent Iran from weaponizing its nuclear program. Frankly, so would I—but that is not the deal that Obama is negotiating, and to claim that people who genuinely don’t want to see an Iranian nuclear weapon are supporting the president over Israel’s prime minister, even as he makes concession after concession to the mullahs, is an outright, willful lie. . . .

Now look at where this dangerous nonsense leads us. A significant number of Democrats are threatening to boycott Netanyahu’s forthcoming speech on Iran to Congress, thereby allowing themselves to be co-opted by the anti-Semites of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Europe is bewildered and scared; after all, the French, British, and German leaders have clearly identified both Islamism and anti-Semitism as civilizational threats, and now the American president is telling them otherwise. Dissidents and democracy activists fighting Islamism in the Arab and wider Islamic worlds have been abandoned, after being told, in effect, that they don’t know what they’re talking about. And resentment toward America’s current leadership continues to grow among its allies: not just the Israelis, but the conservative Arab states like Saudi Arabia, too.

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.