Playing a leading role in the BBC’s coverage of recent events in Israel has been the “Palestine specialist” Tala Halawa, who, it turns out, has made such statements on social media as “ur media is controlled by ur zionist government,” “Zionists can’t get enough of our blood,” and—lest we mistake her anti-Semitism for mere hostility toward Israel—“Hitler was right.” Stephen Daisley observes:

Halawa, it emerges, did not make these comments during her current employment with the BBC—she made them before being recruited. . . . The BBC says it’s investigating, and it has pretty serious questions to answer about how it came to hire a Hitler sympathizer and allow her to cover the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But, . . . while the BBC has a lot of questions to answer, progressive media outlets have just one.

Since the start of the year, the Guardian has published 154 articles about the far right, [but] not one word about Tala Halawa. . . . The Huffington Post has dedicated itself to challenging what it sees as racism in the British media. . . . The New York Times has spent the past several years presenting Britain to its readers as a racist backwater, yet it appears to be in no rush to bring them news of a racism scandal at one of the UK’s most important institutions. Why?

Because when progressives talk about racism, anti-Semitism isn’t what they have in mind. When they talk about the far-right, they cannot conceive of a Palestinian as “far-right,” even when she is bigging up Hitler in between railing against Zionist control of the media. (If we can discern anything from the BBC’s hiring of Halawa and the progressive media’s radio silence on the matter, it’s that Zionists most definitely do not control the media.) And when a member of another ethnic minority engages in anti-Semitism, progressive minds deploy their own Iron Dome to deflect uncomfortable facts that threaten the catechisms of critical race theory and privilege. People who believe that their political views are a product of their superior sense of empathy display a profound lack of empathy when it comes to Jews.

Below, today’s newsletter will return to some other reflections on the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of the current war, but first something must be said of its recent progress. Israel has kept up its aerial and ground assault on Hizballah, and may have already killed the successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader it eliminated less than two weeks ago. Matthew Levitt assesses the current state of the Lebanon-based terrorist group, which, in his view, is now “a shadow of its former self.” Indeed, he adds,

it is no exaggeration to say that the Hizballah of two weeks ago no longer exists. And since Hizballah was the backbone of Iran’s network of militant proxies, its so-called axis of resistance, Iran’s strategy of arming and deploying proxy groups throughout the region is suddenly at risk as well.

Hizballah’s attacks put increasing pressure on Israel, as intended, only that pressure did not lead Israelis to stop targeting Hamas so much as it chipped away at Israel’s fears about the cost of military action to address the military threats posed by Hizballah.

At the same time, Levitt explains, Hizballah still poses a serious threat, as it demonstrated last night when its missiles struck Haifa and Tiberias, injuring at least two people:

Hizballah still maintains an arsenal of rockets and a cadre of several thousand fighters. It will continue to pose potent military threats for Israel, Lebanon, and the wider region.

How will the group seek to avenge Nasrallah’s death amid these military setbacks? Hizballah is likely to resort to acts of international terrorism, which are overseen by one of the few elements of the group that has not yet lost key leaders.

But the true measure of whether the group will be able to reconstitute itself, even over many years, is whether Iran can restock Hizballah’s sophisticated arsenal. Tehran’s network of proxy groups—from Hizballah to Hamas to the Houthis—is only as dangerous as it is today because of Iran’s provision of weapons and money. Whatever Hizballah does next, Western governments must prioritize cutting off Tehran’s ability to arm and fund its proxies.