Following those Palestinians who have compared the current war in Gaza to the Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe) their forbears suffered in 1948, Michael Milshtein observes some similarities that they ignore:

In 1948, the [Palestinian] leadership was the first to flee; today, it hides underground, disconnected from public discourse. Moreover, there remains a persistent [lack of] a coherent national agenda and realistic goals, often replaced by illusions and slogans. . . . The inclination toward victimhood, complete dependency on the international community, and evasion of responsibility and self-criticism have supplanted a viable national strategy. . . . Palestinians describe a tragic historical cycle imposed upon them, yet they avoid acknowledging that this cycle results from strategic choices made by both the public and their leaders.

What Milshtein outlines here is the cycle of “ecstasy and amnesia” Shany Mor has described in Mosaic. Milshtein looks at what lies behind this persistent amnesia of past failures:

Seventy-six years after the 1948 Nakba, there exists a Palestinian national identity, but a significant question lingers regarding the existence of a Palestinian civil society. This collective has not yet protested the unprecedented disaster inflicted upon it by Hamas, and large parts of it, as indicated by Palestinian public opinion polls, support the October 7 attack, back Hamas, and refuse to believe Palestinians committed war crimes. This reflects a long-standing dichotomy: glorifying violent attacks often cloaked in heroic terms of “resistance” and “steadfastness,” while simultaneously retreating into victimhood.

Under these circumstances, dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians is almost impossible, as it requires a conversation “between a community specializing in self-flagellation” and another that adheres “to a monolithic and dichotomous narrative of battle between angels and demons.”

Yesterday, the beepers used by hundreds of Hizballah operatives were detonated. Noah Rothman puts this ingenious attack in the context of the overall war between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist group:

[W]hile the disabling of an untold number of Hizballah operatives is remarkable, it’s also ominous. This week, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant told reporters that the hour is nearing when Israeli forces will have to confront Iran’s cat’s-paw in southern Lebanon directly, in order to return the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along Lebanon’s border under fire and have not yet been able to return. Today’s operation may be a prelude to the next phase of Israel’s defensive war, a dangerous one in which the IDF will face off against an enemy with tens of thousands of fighters and over 150,000 rockets and missiles trained on Israeli cities.

Seth Frantzman, meanwhile, focuses on the specific damage the pager bombings have likely done to Hizballah:

This will put the men in hospital for a period of time. Some of them can go back to serving Hizballah, but they will not have access to one of their hands. These will most likely be their dominant hand, meaning the hand they’d also use to hold the trigger of a rifle or push the button to launch a missile.

Hizballah has already lost around 450 fighters in its eleven-month confrontation with Israel. This is a significant loss for the group. While Hizballah can replace losses, it doesn’t have an endlessly deep [supply of recruits]. This is not only because it has to invest in training and security ahead of recruitment, but also because it draws its recruits from a narrow spectrum of Lebanese society.

The overall challenge for Hizballah is not just replacing wounded and dead fighters. The group will be challenged to . . . roll out some other way to communicate with its men. The use of pagers may seem archaic, but Hizballah apparently chose to use this system because it assumed the network could not be penetrated. . . . It will also now be concerned about the penetration of its operational security. When groups like Hizballah are in chaos, they are more vulnerable to making mistakes.