Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, married authors of best-selling novels, have bravely decided to alert the world to the supposed horrors of Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank and east Jerusalem. To accomplish this, they are organizing a collection of essays by over twenty distinguished literary figures, all of whom have visited or will visit these territories and, Lawrence Haas writes, are presumably as naïve, self-righteous, and ignorant of Middle East realities as Chabon and Waldman:

The occupation is “the most grievous injustice I have ever seen in my life, . . . the worst thing I have ever seen, just purely in terms of injustice,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Jewish author Michael Chabon said after touring the West Bank city of Hebron in late April with his wife, . . . Ayelet Waldman. Perhaps Chabon’s led a sheltered life, for the occupation in Hebron and elsewhere in the West Bank hardly compares to humanitarian horror in North Korea, political suppression in China, Russia, and Cuba, and the lack of fundamental human rights across the Arab world.

Or perhaps it hasn’t occurred to Chabon, Waldman, and the other esteemed novelists who include Mario Vargas Llosa, Geraldine Brooks, and Dave Eggers . . . that they wouldn’t be allowed to investigate human rights in any of the aforementioned countries due to their autocratic rule. . . .

The book, Chabon and Waldman explained, “is not an analysis of the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It asks a simple question: What does occupation look like? What does it feel like to live under occupation?” So while raising consciousness to end the occupation, the book will offer no words about why it’s lasted a half-century, why Israel hasn’t succumbed to such pressure before, and what might happen if it did. . . .

Thus, this book will be another anti-Israeli temper tantrum that criticizes the occupation while offering nothing useful to end it.

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.