Two weeks ago, a French high court upheld a decision not to try Kobili Traoré for beating and then murdering Sarah Halimi, a sixty-five-year-old Jewish woman, on the grounds that he was suffering from marijuana-induced insanity. That Traoré had shouted Allahu Akbar as he threw her from her window, that he had previously called Halimi’s daughter a “dirty Jew,” and other evidence that he was motivated by religious fervor and anti-Semitism did not figure into the court’s ruling. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has responded by calling for changes to the country’s laws regarding drug-use and criminal insanity. While doing so might be salutary, Melanie Phillips argues that it won’t make French Jews safer:

For the problem is not French law but France itself, where paralysis over dealing with Muslim violence against non-Muslims has made the authorities terrified of acknowledging its full nature and extent. For years, French Jews have been subjected to repeated anti-Semitic attacks and murders overwhelmingly perpetrated by Muslims.

Yet . . . French authorities and commentators have repeatedly sought to obscure the anti-Jewish nature of these crimes, ascribing them instead to “lone-wolf” attacks or the outcome of psychotic episodes. Mohammed Merah, for example, [who shot three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in 2012], has been widely portrayed in French media as a victim of prejudice, with his murders blamed on neo-colonial, anti-Muslim racism and discrimination. . . . When Sarah Halimi was murdered, the French authorities initially refused to classify this as an anti-Jewish attack. Indeed, it took two days before it was reported by the media at all.

And now the ruling by the [French high court] has also been barely reported outside the Jewish press and French media. . . . The reason for this indifference is obvious. The murder of Sarah Halimi and the attacks on other French Jews over the past few years tread heavily on some neuralgic left-wing toes. To acknowledge that people in France are being repeatedly attacked and murdered simply because they are Jews destroys the all-important fiction that attacks on Jews are motivated principally by hostility to Israel.

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.