From Israel’s creation in 1948 until Menachem Begin’s 1977 electoral victory, the Jewish state was governed by the Labor party in its various incarnations, and its leaders thought it would ever be thus. For several decades thereafter, it remained one of two dominant parties. The most recent election, however, heralded Labor’s final collapse into irrelevance. Matti Friedman reflects:

When the dust settled after Israel’s last national election in February, the Labor party had a mere three members of Knesset out of 120. But that’s rosy compared to what it just got in a poll on April 13: zero. Just like that, the party of David Ben-Gurion and Yitzḥak Rabin no longer mattered. Because Israeli news coverage has been preoccupied with pandemic panic, almost no one noticed.

As Friedman notes, Labor’s end has been a long time coming:

By [1972], voters from the actual Jewish working class, who tended to come from Islamic countries like Morocco, had been alienated by Labor and were showing a clear preference for the right. The next year, 1973, came the earthquake of the Yom Kippur War, a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria which killed more than 2,500 Israeli soldiers. That led to fury at the Labor elite over its failure to adequately prepare the army, and four years later came the party’s first election loss to Likud after three uninterrupted decades in power. After that war, the old collective style lost ground to individualism. Israeli songs stopped using the socialist accordion and the word “we.”

But the kibbutz, [an institution central to Labor’s vision], like the country it helped found, is still very much alive, even if neither ended up following the path [their founders expected of them]. After the members [of Kibbutz Ma’aleh ha-Ḥamishah] dropped socialism, 100 families moved into the new neighborhood where the orchards used to be. Most were kibbutz kids who’d left. . . . They were drawn not by ideology but by life in a place that’s beautiful and good for commuters, near the highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The population has more than doubled in fifteen years. The ideas went away, but the kindergartens are full.

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.