The recent discovery in Israel of 1,600-year-old kilns for the production of glass has convinced archaeologists that Roman Palestine was one of the world’s leading centers for glassmaking, as i24 News reports:

The kilns, which were discovered during an excavation carried out as part of the Jezreel Valley Railway Project, consisted of two built compartments. They included a firebox where kindling was burned to create a very high temperature, and a melting chamber—in which the raw materials for the glass (clean beach sand and salt) were inserted and melted together at a temperature of 1,200 degrees Centigrade.

“This is a very important discovery with implications regarding the history of the glass industry both in Israel and in the entire ancient world,” said Yael Gorin-Rosen, head curator of the Israel Antiquities Authority Glass Department.

“We know from historical sources dating to the Roman period that the Valley of Acre was renowned for the excellent quality of sand located there, which was highly suitable for the manufacture of glass,” she added. “Chemical analyses conducted on glass vessels from this period which were discovered until now at sites in Europe and in shipwrecks in the Mediterranean basin have shown that the source of the glass is from our region. Now, for the first time, the kilns have been found where the raw material was manufactured that was used to produce this glassware.”

While conventional wisdom in the Western press believes that the war with Hamas has left Jerusalem more isolated and scuttled chances of expanding the Abraham Accords, Gabriel Scheinmann points to a very different reality. He begins with Iran’s massive drone and missile attack on Israel last month, and the coalition that helped defend against it:

America’s Arab allies had, in various ways, provided intelligence and allowed U.S. and Israeli planes to operate in their airspace. Jordan, which has been vociferously attacking Israel’s conduct in Gaza for months, even publicly acknowledged that it shot down incoming Iranian projectiles. When the chips were down, the Arab coalition held and made clear where they stood in the broader Iranian war on Israel.

The successful batting away of the Iranian air assault also engendered awe in Israel’s air-defense capabilities, which have performed marvelously throughout the war. . . . Israel’s response to the Iranian night of missiles should give further courage to Saudi Arabia to codify its alignment. Israel . . . telegraphed clearly to Tehran that it could hit precise targets without its aircraft being endangered and that the threshold of a direct Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear or other sites had been breached.

The entire episode demonstrated that Israel can both hit Iranian sites and defend against an Iranian response. At a time when the United States is focused on de-escalation and restraint, Riyadh could see quite clearly that only Israel has both the capability and the will to deal with the Iranian threat.

It is impossible to know whether the renewed U.S.-Saudi-Israel negotiations will lead to a normalization deal in the immediate months ahead. . . . Regardless of the status of this deal, [however], or how difficult the war in Gaza may appear, America’s Arab allies have now become Israel’s.