Until recently, academic scholars have followed the opinion of talmudic sages in reading biblical references to honey as referring not to bees’ honey but to date syrup. Recent discoveries—some of which are now on display at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv—have led them to revise this understanding, as Bible History Daily reports:

Of the 55 times that honey appears in the Hebrew Bible, only twice does it specify bees’ honey (Judges 14:8–9 and 1 Samuel 14:27)—both of which refer to wild bees. Scholars used to believe that the other mentions of honey always referred to fruit honey, which was the common sweetener in ancient times. . . .

However, recent archaeological discoveries show that the ancient Israelites did indeed keep bees. This, coupled with new readings of these Biblical passages, has caused many to reevaluate the accepted interpretation. It seems that some of the 53 appearances of honey in the Hebrew Bible once thought to mean fruit honey actually mean bees’ honey.

Tel Reḥov, a site in the northern Jordan Valley, . . . has yielded discoveries from the 10th and 9th centuries BCE, the time alluded to in the Bible as that of David, Solomon, and the first kings of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Among these discoveries was an apiary—the only [apiary] ever discovered in an archaeological excavation—with remains of bees imported from Anatolia inside the clay hives.

As this newsletter noted last week, Gaza is not suffering from famine, and the efforts to suggest that it is—which have been going on since at least the beginning of last year—are based on deliberate manipulation of the data. Nor, as Shany Mor explains, does international law require Israel to feed its enemies:

Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention does oblige High Contracting Parties to allow for the free passage of medical and religious supplies along with “essential foodstuff, clothing, and tonics intended for children under fifteen” for the civilians of another High Contracting Party, as long as there is no serious reason for fearing that “the consignments may be diverted from their destination,” or “that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy” by the provision.

The Hamas regime in Gaza is, of course, not a High Contracting Party, and, more importantly, Israel has reason to fear both that aid provisions are diverted by Hamas and that a direct advantage is accrued to it by such diversions. Not only does Hamas take provisions for its own forces, but its authorities sell provisions donated by foreign bodies and use the money to finance its war. It’s notable that the first reports of Hamas’s financial difficulties emerged only in the past few weeks, once provisions were blocked.

Yet, since the war began, even European states considered friendly to Israel have repeatedly demanded that Israel “allow unhindered passage of humanitarian aid” and refrain from seizing territory or imposing “demographic change”—which means, in practice, that Gazan civilians can’t seek refuge abroad. These principles don’t merely constitute a separate system of international law that applies only to Israel, but prolong the suffering of the people they are ostensibly meant to protect:

By insisting that Hamas can’t lose any territory in the war it launched, the international community has invented a norm that never before existed and removed one of the few levers Israel has to pressure it to end the war and release the hostages.

These commitments have . . . made the plight of the hostages much worse and much longer. They made the war much longer than necessary and much deadlier for both sides. And they locked a large civilian population in a war zone where the de-facto governing authority was not only indifferent to civilian losses on its own side, but actually had much to gain by it.