Comparing the reactions to, and media coverage of, the recent attack on a Texas synagogue to the deadly 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Bari Weiss observes the disturbing trend whereby some anti-Semitic violence counts more than others. She recalls the muted reaction to a 2019 shooting at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City that left three dead—and whose perpetrators also attempted to bomb a ḥasidic elementary school.

The [two perpetrators] hated cops and they hated Jews, a sentiment apparently driven by the twisted ideology of the Black Hebrew Israelites, who believe that they are the real Jews and that the real Jews are pretenders. . . . The day after the shooting, I went to the supermarket to do some reporting for a column I expected to publish. Unlike in Pittsburgh, there was not a single flower or condolence card. Just broken glass, and ḥasidic Jews working with construction workers to board up the ransacked building, which was riddled with bullet holes. There were no television cameras.

No one in my social-media feeds, to say nothing of mainstream reporters, wanted to look very hard at the killers’ motives or at the responses among some members of the community.

When eleven Jews who look like me were shot by a white supremacist in Pittsburgh, it was a clean story. Here was unadulterated evil mowing down the innocent. But Jews dressed in black hats and strange clothes with obscure accents? The ones in Jersey City or in Monsey or Crown Heights or Williamsburg or Borough Park? These are imperfect victims. They are forgotten and overlooked because they are not the right kind of Jews. And because they weren’t beaten or killed by the right kind of anti-Semites.

Neither was the hostage-taker in Colleyville, Texas. Malik Faisal Akram wasn’t white, and he didn’t talk about the Nazis or Hitler. He talked instead about the injustice done to Aafia Siddiqui, a jihadist who is serving an 86-year sentence at a Texas prison for assaulting U.S. officers and employees with an M-4 rifle.

Siddiqui is a committed Jew hater. But in its coverage of the Colleyville hostage-taking, the Associated Press made no mention of any of this. Instead, the AP dutifully quoted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization whose executive director, Zahra Billoo, gave a speech in November railing against “Zionist synagogues” and blaming Zionists for Islamophobia and other ills. “Oppose the vehement fascists, but oppose the polite Zionists, too. They are not your friends,” she said. “When we talk about Islamophobia and Zionism let’s be clear about the connections.”

The AP doesn’t mention that either.

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.