Last week, the State Department announced that it will remit some $150 million to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which serves to perpetuate the Israel-Palestinian conflict by keeping Palestinians in a permanent state of refugeedom while educating their children to hate Jews. Tens of millions of dollars more will go to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. To send this aid, the Biden administration will have to find a way around two pieces of legislation that forbid U.S. funds from going to institutions that support terrorism. Matthew Continetti comments:

A conceit of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy is that involvement in corrupt multilateral institutions [like UNRWA] somehow gives the United States an opportunity to improve them.

What was particularly galling about [the resumption of aid to the Palestinians] was its disconnect from the nature of Palestinian governance. Here is an administration that says the conflict between democracy and authoritarianism will define the 21st century. Here is an administration that prides itself on its support for human rights. And here is an administration that says it will be able to prevent millions in taxpayer funds from directly benefiting the Palestinian Authority, and thereby breaking U.S. law.

Good luck. The renewed assistance, remember, will be circulated in a polity whose president is in the sixteenth year of a four-year term, whose official corruption is legendary, whose 2.7 million subjects are policed by no fewer than six internal security forces.

When you reward bad behavior, you get more of it. And that is exactly what Biden is doing.

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.