Stepping back from the strategic, tactical, and diplomatic questions Israel faces with regard to Iran’s quest to develop nuclear weapons, Daniel Gordis argues that what is at stake is the soul of the Zionist project:

The primary purpose of Zionism was to restore dignity to the Jewish people, to end millennia of Jews living in fear. You could see it and hear it everywhere in the heyday of Zionist ideology. Theodor Herzl said it often. The anthem of Beitar, Vladimir Jabotinsky’s movement that would produce Menachem Begin and the Likud, proclaimed, ivri gam ben oni, ben sar—every Jew, even a poor one, is royalty
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When Begin launched Operation Litani to get the PLO out of southern Lebanon in 1982 (an operation that morphed into the eighteen-year-long Lebanon war), it was because he couldn’t bear the notion that in a sovereign Jewish state, children in the northern city of Kiryat Shmona were crying themselves to sleep in bomb shelters, as Katyusha rockets pummeled the town. Hiding from enemies, shivering in fear and praying that nothing would happen to them was [the Jewish experience] of Europe, Begin believed. He was going to end that

With stress high, compulsory military service, armed conflagrations regular, and challenges aplenty, why are Israelis happier than most of, and having more kids than the rest of, the developed world? Because they feel safe, and they have a sense of purpose. The purpose, whether or not they articulate it to themselves this way, is being part of one of the greatest stories of human rebirth in all of history. It’s the story of bringing a nation back from the precipice, the story of sowing hope where despair should have reigned, of embracing the future even while remembering a tear-rinsed past. It’s the story of taking a . . . shattered people that had lived in fear and with weakness for centuries, and in the space of a few decades, transforming that people completely.

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.