The Hebrew Bible and the Talmud make frequent mention of the date palm, and both works list its fruit among the agricultural products that distinguish the Land of Israel. After fifteen years of effort, a team of Israeli scientists have used 2,000-year-old seeds to recreate the dates of the Bible. Isabel Kershner writes:

A Roman coin minted around 70 CE to celebrate the conquest of Judea depicted the Jewish defeat as a woman weeping under a date palm. But by the Middle Ages, the famed Judean plantations had died out. Wars and upheaval likely made their cultivation impractical, as did their need for copious amounts of water in summer. . . .

Elaine Solowey, [an agricultural scientist], planted the seeds in quarantined pots in January 2005, not expecting much, but nevertheless employing a few “horticultural tricks” to try to coax them out of their long slumber, involving warming, careful hydration, a plant hormone, and enzymatic fertilizer.

This endeavor produced a tree named Methuselah, which turned out to be male. But growing dates requires trees of both sexes:

[Soloway’s collaborator, Sarah] Sallon went searching again and chose more than 30 seeds from another stash from archaeological sites in the Judean desert, including Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Planted at Kibbutz Keturah between 2011 and 2014, six of the seeds sprouted. They were given the names of biblical figures when they germinated, but as their sexes became clear over time, Judah became Judith, Eve became Adam, and Jeremiah became Hannah.

Hannah’s seed, which came from an ancient burial cave in Wadi el-Makkukh near Jericho, . . . was carbon dated to between the 1st and 4th centuries BCE, becoming one of the oldest known seeds ever to have been germinated.

The match between Hannah and Methuselah produced dates that, reportedly, were delicious.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.