In 2017, a group of real-estate developers bought a plot of land in the town of Chester, in New York’s Hudson Valley, that had been designated for a new housing development. Since then, the town’s residents and officials have fought to stop the houses from being built, stating quite bluntly that they fear it will become a ḥasidic enclave—a concern based solely on the fact that some of the developers are themselves Ḥasidim. Sharon Otterman writes:

Town officials have repeatedly placed obstacles in the developers’ path: restrictions on the size of the houses they can build, delays on issuing building permits, and a request to relocate the main road by ten feet. . . . Angry residents at [a town] meeting talked of how school taxes could rise, and public resources could be stretched in the town. . . . They spoke of fears that the development would one day resemble Kiryas Joel, a ḥasidic village about nine miles away that is overcrowded and has ranked among the poorest communities in the nation.

The developers . . . cite these statements and others in a federal lawsuit that accuses the town, Orange County, and individual local officials of discrimination. . . . The Orange County executive, Steven M. Neuhaus, a Chester resident and its former town supervisor, suggested delay tactics, including retesting the water and denying sewer permitting, at a meeting a month earlier. . . .

“If you show up to a public hearing, you can hear what the voters are saying, which is ‘keep the ḥasidic [sic] out,’” said John Petroccione, the civil engineer who designed the project 25 years ago, and is working with the developers to complete it. . . .

“[N]obody on the board, . . . nobody who works in the town, . . . nobody wants this development to go through,” Alexander Jamieson, the former town supervisor of Chester, said at a public meeting in May 2018. . . . Jamieson, who resigned as town supervisor last September after pleading guilty to collecting unemployment while working in that role, also stood by his comments. “It’s not anti-Semitic to say it’s going to be a ḥasidic development,” he said in an interview near the site. “I’m just telling the truth.”

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.