Many Israelis took extra pride in their country this weekend when the pop singer Netta Barzilai won the Eurovision musical contest—a major event in Europe and the Middle East—with a song bearing a distinctively Middle Eastern flavor. Considering the changes in Israeli popular culture over the past few decades, Matti Friedman explains what one can learn about the Jewish state from its music:

A telling cultural moment occurred at [Israel’s] official [70th]-anniversary gala, a glitzy musical extravaganza televised from Jerusalem on April 18 (the date of Independence Day on the Hebrew calendar). The opening number was, predictably, a Hebrew classic, “From the Songs of my Beloved Land,” with lyrics by Leah Goldberg, a revered poet who features on the 100-shekel banknote. . . . But the singer in a shiny white gown who belted out a cover for a national TV audience was Sarit Hadad, one of Israel’s biggest pop stars and the queen of a genre called “Mizraḥi,” or “eastern.” In the hands of Hadad, who has the style and vocal power of the great divas of the Arab world, and with the addition of instruments such as the oud, the poet’s words were transformed into a song of the Middle East. . . .

The division between Jews from Europe and Jews from the Islamic world remains one of Israel’s most painful fault lines, and it has played out in pop music. For many years, the Mizraḥi sound was scorned by the curators of Israeli culture and kept on the margins. In record stores, you’d have a section for “Israeli” music, meaning mostly music by artists of European ancestry and orientation, and a separate section for “Mizraḥi” or “Mediterranean” music, even though this music, too, was in Hebrew and produced in Israel. . . .

Recent years have seen a reversal. Mizraḥi music is now the country’s leading pop genre. . . . The contentious politician responsible for this year’s anniversary celebrations—and for Hadad’s [performance]—is the culture minister, Miri Regev, a combative voice known for railing against the old cultural elites. Regev, who is of Moroccan descent, belongs to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, whose political base has traditionally been heavy on Israelis with roots in the Islamic world. Regev regularly stokes nationalist sentiment and is reviled on the left. . . .

Regev has said publicly that Arabic music “has something to offer Israeli culture,” and, in her post at the Culture Ministry, has made it her business to push the Middle Eastern sound to center stage. Last year’s Independence Day celebration starred Nasreen Qadri, a popular performer in the Mizraḥi genre who is Arab: something that didn’t seem to happen under culture ministers from the left, who might have wanted a peace agreement with the Arab world but didn’t think much of Arab culture, or of the Israeli Jews who share that culture.

Between the explosion of thousands of Hizballah pagers on September 17 and now, Iran’s geopolitical clout has shrunk dramatically: Hizballah, Iran’s most important striking force, has retreated to lick its wounds; Iranian influence in Syria has collapsed; Iran’s attempts to attack Israel via Gaza have proved self-defeating; its missile and drone arsenal have proved impotent; and its territorial defenses have proved useless in the face of Israeli airpower. Edward Luttwack considers what might happen next:

The myth of Iranian power was ironically propagated by the United States itself. Right at the start of his first term, in January 2009, Barack Obama was terrified that he would be maneuvered into fighting a war against Iran. . . . Obama started his tenure by apologizing for America’s erstwhile support for the shah. And beyond showing contrition for the past, the then-president also set a new rule, one that lasted all the way to October 2024: Iran may attack anyone, but none may attack Iran.

[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s] variegated fighters, in light trucks and jeeps, could have been stopped by a few hundred well-trained soldiers. But neither Hizballah nor Iran’s own Revolutionary Guards could react. Hizballah no longer has any large units capable of crossing the border to fight rebels in Syria, as they had done so many times before. As for the Revolutionary Guards, they were commandeering civilian airliners to fly troops into Damascus airport to support Assad. But then Israel made clear that it would not allow Iran’s troops so close to its border, and Iran no longer had credible counter-threats.

Now Iran’s population is discovering that it has spent decades in poverty to pay for the massive build-up of the Revolutionary Guards and all their militias. And for what? They have elaborate bases and showy headquarters, but their expensive ballistic missiles can only be used against defenseless Arabs, not Israel with its Arrow interceptors. As for Hizballah, clearly it cannot even defend itself, let alone Iran’s remaining allies in the region. Perhaps, in short, the dictatorship will finally be challenged in the streets of Iran’s cities, at scale and in earnest.