At most Israeli public schools, the history of the Jews of Muslim lands merits scant attention, with the sole exception of the poets of medieval Spain. The recently released Biton Report, commissioned by Education Minister Naftali Bennett and produced by a committee chaired by the poet Erez Biton—himself of Moroccan and Algerian descent—seeks to remedy that situation. Aryeh Tepper explains its significance:

[S]ince Mizraḥi Jews tend to be more [religiously] traditional and nationalistic than Ashkenazi Jews, augmenting the Mizraḥi story naturally dovetails with Bennett’s expressed desire to strengthen the bond between Zionism and Jewish history. . . .

And make no mistake, the depth of connection to Jewish tradition is what distinguishes Mizrahi culture from Ashkenazi culture in Israel. The roots of the split go back to the beginning of the 20th century, when secular and socialist European Jewish Zionists rebelled against tradition by “negating the Diaspora” in order to fashion a “new Jew” in the land of Israel. These animating principles were unknown to Mizraḥi Jews, but they got to know them pretty quickly when, upon arrival in the country in the 1950s and 60s, they “learned” in school and via the media that their traditional Jewish identity was a primitive relic of the Diaspora that deserved to disappear into a new secular-socialist melting pot. . . .

But rooting Israeli identity in Middle Eastern Jewish history via Mizraḥi heritage isn’t only a strike against the “negation of the Diaspora.” By explicitly placing the Mizraḥi story in its Israeli context or, in other words, by viewing the Mizraḥi story as part of the national Jewish story, the Biton Report constitutes an implicit response to a fashionable journalistic and academic trend that removes Mizraḥi experience from its national, Jewish context and leverages Mizraḥi suffering to attack the state of Israel. In order to pull off this pseudo-intellectual sleight-of-hand, journalists and academics are compelled to participate in a staggering act of intellectual dishonesty in which the openly expressed and deeply rooted Zionist sentiments of Mizraḥi Jews are either ignored or written off in good Marxist fashion as an example of “false consciousness.”

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.