Do Middle East politics affect the way archaeologists talk and write about ancient Israel? Without a doubt, writes Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review. He offers some disturbing examples regarding Jericho, now under the control of the Palestinian Authority:

A conference was recently held at University College London titled “Digging Up Jericho.” Scholars from England, the United States, Holland, Italy, Denmark, and the Palestinian Department of Antiquities presented papers. No scholars from you-know-where were on the program. . . .

[N]one of the papers dealt with whether the excavation revealed any information—positive or negative—about the biblical account of the destruction of Jericho. The Bible was apparently verboten. No one would ever know the Bible dealt with the site. . . .

In the spring of 2012, I met an archaeologist in Jerusalem who was associated with [the ongoing excavation at Jericho]. When she told me about it, I naturally thought of the possibility of an article in Biblical Archaeology Review. I mentioned this to her, and she seemed to be receptive. We decided to go to the site and talk further about it. We had a great visit, and on the way back we agreed on the general outline of an article. . . .

Despite the promising start, the archaeologist later declined to write the article, citing “the political situation.” Shanks surmises this was an oblique indication that her research would be stopped if she attached her name to an article that discussed the Bible’s account of the city.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.