The Palestinian Authority has been involved since last year in a campaign to delegitimize the 1917 Balfour Declaration, demanding that Britain apologize for its decision to create “a Jewish national home in Palestine.” According to the current Palestinian narrative, the declaration and its subsequent ratification by the League of Nations betrayed the principle of self-determination it was meant to uphold (by ignoring Palestinian Arabs’ right to a state of their own), unjustly gave Arab land to Jews, and thus led to the Arab-Israeli conflict and a century of Palestinian suffering. Gershon Hacohen seeks to put this narrative, and the Balfour declaration itself, in context:

[After 1917], the Arabs claimed the Balfour Declaration contradicted the principle of self-determination—but even as that claim was made, the leaders of the Arab struggle did not demand Palestinian self-determination. What they demanded instead was the joining of the mandatory land of Israel to the short-lived Kingdom of Syria, which was established by the self-proclaimed King Faisal [and lasted from March to July of 1920]. Their recognition of Palestine as part of a “Greater Syria” remained [in place] long after Faisal was expelled from Damascus by the French. . . .

In view of the League of Nations’ design to end imperial colonialism, the recognition by the world powers—followed by the international community as a whole—of the right of the Jews to a national home in the land of Israel stands prominent. The [official acknowledgment] of the exceptional situation of the Jews, most of whom did not reside at that time within the expanse of Mandate rule, . . . emphasized the significance of the special right of the Jewish people in the land of Israel. It recognized their historical and cultural affinity to the land and affirmed the political significance of this affinity.

The importance of the declaration lies also in its timing—decades before the Holocaust. It recognized the right of the people of Israel to establish a national entity in the land of Israel due to their historical ties to the land rather than due to a disaster that befell them. Israeli Jews, [especially], should seek to return to that understanding of the grounds for Israel’s establishment, which was taken for granted at the time by the international community.

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.