Louisiana recently enacted a law requiring that the text of the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public-school classroom. Almost immediately afterwards, the ACLU filed a lawsuit complaining that the regulation violated the First Amendment. Once, the ACLU would have had a near-airtight case, but a 2022 Supreme Court ruling has changed the way the First Amendment is applied in such instances, and this lawsuit will test the new doctrine. Michael A. Helfand explains that there are two reasons the law might still fail to pass muster:

First, in its most recent decisions, the current Supreme Court has been clear that government still cannot enact laws that are religiously coercive. . . . And at least in the past, the Supreme Court has construed the concept of religious coercion broadly, to . . . encompass laws that don’t quite force others to participate in a religious practice. For example, in 1992, the Supreme Court held that a religious prayer at a public-school graduation—technically a program where attendance is voluntary—violated principles of church-state separation because it constituted a form of “subtle pressure” on students to attend and participate.

Second, the court has also previously held that “denominational preference”—that is, enacting laws that prefer one religion over others—also violates the First Amendment. . . . Louisiana’s law explicitly chooses a version of the Ten Commandments that differs in text and emphasis from the version embraced by various Jewish and Christian denominations. Moreover, the very idea of privileging the Ten Commandments in the classroom might constitute a preference for the Judeo-Christian tradition over and above the traditions of other faith communities.

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.