The Temple Mount Sifting Project, directed by two experts on the history of ancient Israel, has allowed thousands of volunteers to comb through rubble from the site to look for artifacts. Recently, a ten-year-old participant discovered a stone seal that archaeologists date to the presumed time of Kings David and Solomon. Henry Curtis Pelgrift writes:

The seal is a tiny piece of limestone whose purpose was probably to seal documents. Photographs . . . show that it is cone-shaped, with a circular sealing surface about the size of a fingertip. Figures carved into it show one animal on top of another, possibly its prey. The seal is perforated, so that a string can be inserted and used to hang it around a person’s neck. . . .

In describing the significance of the find, [the project’s directors], Gabriel Barkay and Zachi Dvira, said, “The seal is the first of its kind to be found in Jerusalem. . . . The dating of the seal corresponds to the historical period of the Jebusites and the conquest of Jerusalem by King David, as well as the construction of the Temple and the royal official compound by his son, King Solomon. . . . [W]hat makes this discovery particularly significant is that it originated from the Temple Mount itself.” . . .

However, some scholars . . . have warned that too much importance should not be [ascribed to] a single seal. Lenny Wolfe, a collector of antiquities, [argues] that the fact that the seal can be easily moved from place to place means that it could have been carried to Jerusalem at any point and forgotten.

Robert Satloff has some harsh words for the U.S. government in this regard, words I take especially seriously because Satloff is someone inclined to political moderation. Why, he asks, have American diplomats failed to achieve anything in their endless rounds of talks in Doha and Cairo? Because

there is simply not enough pressure on Hamas to change course, accept a deal, and release the remaining October 7 hostages, stuck in nightmarish captivity. . . . In this environment, why should Hamas change course?

Publicly, the U.S. should bite the bullet and urge Israel to complete the main battle operations in Gaza—i.e., the Rafah operation—as swiftly and efficiently as possible. We should be assertively assisting with the humanitarian side of this.

Satloff had more to say about the hostages, especially the five American ones, in a speech he gave recently:

I am ashamed—ashamed of how we have allowed the story of the hostages to get lost in the noise of the war that followed their capture; ashamed of how we have permitted their release to be a bargaining chip in some larger political negotiation; ashamed of how we have failed to give them the respect and dignity and our wholehearted demand for Red Cross access and care and medicine that is our normal, usual demand for hostages.

If they were taken by Boko Haram, everyone would know their name. If they were taken by the Taliban, everyone would tie a yellow ribbon around a tree for them. If they were taken by Islamic State, kids would learn about them in school.

It is repugnant to see their freedom as just one item on the bargaining table with Hamas, as though they were chattel. These are Americans—and they deserve to be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.