Since the United Arab Emirates made public its desire to normalize relations with Israel, the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and his associates have vociferously condemned the move, and have likewise condemned Bahrain for joining in. David Horovitz reflects on Abbas’s current position:

Abbas self-righteously declares that he does not want to go down as the leader who sold out the Palestinian cause, as the leader who betrayed his people’s interests. But that’s precisely what he has done over the sixteen years since he succeeded the late Yasir Arafat, that duplicitous participant in a previous White House accords ceremony.

Unlike Arafat, Abbas hasn’t directly orchestrated terrorism. But he and his establishment have relentlessly incited against the Jewish state, deriding its historical legitimacy, and serving as a prime instigator of what President Donald Trump, in his speech [at the recent signing ceremony], accurately nailed as constant lies “that al-Aqsa was under attack.” . . . While he has mostly refused to negotiate, and, when briefly negotiating, has held to positions such as the untenable demand for a “right of return” to Israel for millions of Palestinians, his hand has grown weaker,

I wonder what was going through Mahmoud Abbas’s head on Tuesday [as representatives of Bahrain, the UAE, and Israel met on the White House lawn]. Does he really want to throw in his people’s lot with Gaza’s terrorists (who saw fit to fire rockets into Israel during and after the ceremony), Hizballah, and Tehran? Is he waiting for Trump to lose, and if so in the hope that a President Biden would do what exactly?

Was he even watching?

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.