Archaeologists have long believed that a pile of large stones at the base of the Western Wall is a product of the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 C. E. One archaeologist, however, has sparked a controversy by claiming that they tumbled during a massive earthquake that hit Jerusalem 300 years later. Robin Ngo writes:

[Shimon] Gibson compared the artisanship of the toppled stones, among which are pilaster stones, with supporting pillars from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the church over the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and the church at Mamre near Hebron. He proposes that the builders of these Byzantine structures imitated what they saw at the Temple Mount in 325 C.E. in an effort to demonstrate Christianity was the successor of Judaism. How would the 4th-century builders have been able to copy these Temple Mount stones, Gibson reasoned, if they were not standing at the time?

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”