New Discoveries Support the Biblical Account of the Razing of Gezer

An Egyptian pharaoh, the book of Kings relates, conquered the Canaanite city of Gezer, burned it to the ground, and slaughtered its inhabitants; the text tells us that it was later rebuilt by King Solomon. Ongoing excavations of the city seem to confirm this version of events, as Amanda Borschel-Dan writes:

Three torched skeletal remains were discovered this summer at the Tel Gezer archaeological site. . . . Previous digging seasons have uncovered Canaanite treasure troves and a King Solomon-era palace.

“The adult [skeleton] was lying on its back with arms above its head. The child, who was wearing earrings, was next to the adult, to the left. This room was filled with ash and collapsed mud brick,” Steve Ortiz, [director of the excavation, explained]. . . . In a second area, other skeletal remains were found under a pile of collapsed stones. [One skeleton] “attests to the violent nature of the destruction, as it is clear he experienced the trauma of the event,” said Ortiz. . . .

Ortiz [also] said Egyptians usually preferred to subdue vassal cities and continue their revenue streams. The widespread conflagration and “heavy destruction suggests the Egyptian pharaoh encountered much resistance from the Gezerites.” . . .

Other items in the torched rooms included a 13th-century-BCE amulet and cylinder seals depicting war, which . . . also provide evidence of Egyptian military campaigns there at the end of the late Bronze Age.

Read more at Times of Israel

More about: Ancient Egypt, Archaeology, Hebrew Bible, History & Ideas, King Solomon

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF