Lebanon stood up. Lebanon saw Hezbollah weakened enough that it could manage to stand up

and signed a deal with Israel in which Israel is fully empowered to continue to smash Hezbollah as necessary.

Israel has now set a status quo in which it gets to do with the bombing.

And that's the secret reality, the secret truth that nobody can say out loud,

but is very obvious to everyone

in the region about this deal. And that's why it's a fantastic deal. But we're seeing a failure

of the state to take care of most of the civilian needs, even as the military successes continue

and are astonishing.

It's 6 o'clock p.m. on Sunday, December 1st here in New York City.

It's 1 o'clock a.m. on Monday, December 1st here in New York City. It's 1 o'clock a.m. on Monday, December 2nd,

in Israel, as Israelis turn to a new day. Before today's episode, one housekeeping note. Some good news.

Jewish food. The Jewish Food Society is a non-profit organization whose mission is to preserve and celebrate Jewish culinary heritage in order to deepen connections to Jewish life. If you

love Jewish food, as I do, and Israeli food as I do, not only how it tastes, but also what

it tells us about Jewish history and Jewish life today,

then you need to learn about the Jewish Food Society.

Importantly, this organization played an important role in Israel and in the diaspora after October 7th.

The name the Jewish Food Society and its executive director, Nama Sheffi, may be familiar to some of our listeners because they feature prominently in mine and Saul Singer's most recent book, The Genius of Israel.

You can go back and look and see the connection because we have a whole chapter on Jewish food and Israeli food.

In any event, as part of the annual fundraising drive for the

Jewish Food Society, they are holding an auction to support the work of the organization,

and you can bid on priceless culinary and cultural experiences, including a lunch with yours truly.

That's right. You can bid on this lunch. We can get together, hopefully eat

...