Israel recently decided, at the behest of Christian religious leaders, to recognize those Arabic-speaking Christians who wish to identify themselves as “Arameans.” This has raised the prospect of their also reviving Aramaic, the language of Jesus, the Talmud, Judaism’s most well-known prayers (kaddish and kol nidre), and the long-ago Christian communities of the Middle East. Such an outcome is unlikely but not impossible, writes Philologos:

Many Christian denominations in Israel, such as the Maronite and Eastern Orthodox churches, still use Aramaic as a language of prayer, just as Jews used Hebrew liturgically long after they had ceased to speak it. (The survival of ancient languages that are no longer spoken in prayer and sacred texts is common all over the world, such as Latin in Catholicism, Sanskrit in Hinduism, Pali in Buddhism, Ge’ez in Ethiopian Christianity, and so on.) There is no reason that Israeli Christian Arabs should not learn to understand the language in which they pray and have a large religious literature, which is something that very few of them are able to do now. Just as many Jews in America study Hebrew, say, not in order to be spoken but in order to be comprehended as the language of the synagogue and Jewish tradition, so Aramaic could become a focus of study in Israel.

Between the explosion of thousands of Hizballah pagers on September 17 and now, Iran’s geopolitical clout has shrunk dramatically: Hizballah, Iran’s most important striking force, has retreated to lick its wounds; Iranian influence in Syria has collapsed; Iran’s attempts to attack Israel via Gaza have proved self-defeating; its missile and drone arsenal have proved impotent; and its territorial defenses have proved useless in the face of Israeli airpower. Edward Luttwak considers what might happen next:

The myth of Iranian power was ironically propagated by the United States itself. Right at the start of his first term, in January 2009, Barack Obama was terrified that he would be maneuvered into fighting a war against Iran. . . . Obama started his tenure by apologizing for America’s erstwhile support for the shah. And beyond showing contrition for the past, the then-president also set a new rule, one that lasted all the way to October 2024: Iran may attack anyone, but none may attack Iran.

[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s] variegated fighters, in light trucks and jeeps, could have been stopped by a few hundred well-trained soldiers. But neither Hizballah nor Iran’s own Revolutionary Guards could react. Hizballah no longer has any large units capable of crossing the border to fight rebels in Syria, as they had done so many times before. As for the Revolutionary Guards, they were commandeering civilian airliners to fly troops into Damascus airport to support Assad. But then Israel made clear that it would not allow Iran’s troops so close to its border, and Iran no longer had credible counter-threats.

Now Iran’s population is discovering that it has spent decades in poverty to pay for the massive build-up of the Revolutionary Guards and all their militias. And for what? They have elaborate bases and showy headquarters, but their expensive ballistic missiles can only be used against defenseless Arabs, not Israel with its Arrow interceptors. As for Hizballah, clearly it cannot even defend itself, let alone Iran’s remaining allies in the region. Perhaps, in short, the dictatorship will finally be challenged in the streets of Iran’s cities, at scale and in earnest.