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Initial reports from Amsterdam last week described horrific scenes of Israeli football supporters being beaten up in violent clashes that the authorities condemned as antisemitic.

In a speech that monotonously and mindlessly emphasized the word “victory,” new Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem declared last week: “As we won in July 2006, we will win today.” But Lebanon never won in 2006 and there is no victory to be obtained for the Lebanese people in 2024.

Smuggled from one safe house to the next, communicating with underlings via scraps of paper for fear of using a phone, and with his foremost regional commanders dead, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is perhaps pondering how his actions have brought Iran to this miserable juncture.

After Iran’s second massive barrage of rockets last week, which failed to cause any significant damage to its targets in Israel, Ayatollah Khamenei’s speech — delivered in Arabic — spoke volumes about who his priority audiences are.

If the Gaza protagonists succeed in grudgingly inching toward a ceasefire, despite most of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conflict objectives remaining unmet, the question then would be: what next?