In the years after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the city of Tiberias emerged as a center of Jewish life and learning, and remained so into the early Islamic period. It also experienced a renaissance of Jewish life under Ottoman rule. Now, after eleven years of painstaking excavations of one of the city’s ancient mosques, a team of archaeologists led by Katia Cytryn-Silverman has discovered an even older mosque beneath it, likely built in the 7th century. The Times of Israel reports:

Cytryn-Silverman, of the Hebrew University, said it is the oldest mosque in the world that can be excavated. Other ancient mosques are either still being used or have had other mosques built on top of them, hindering research. It has [thus] been difficult to know exactly what the original buildings looked like.

A clue to when the older mosque was built came from earth used as filling in the foundation, which was brought in from elsewhere. By consulting with an archaeologist in Yemen, Cytryn-Silverman was further convinced that “the construction technology used at the ancient mosque, a simple and pragmatic style uncharacteristic of the region, apparently first came to Israel at the start of the Arab conquest in the 7th century.” She said the technology itself may have originated in the Arabian Peninsula.

Following the Arab conquests of the region, . . . Tiberias became the capital of Jund al-Urdun, the Jordanian military district, making it a political and economic center. The site is close to the remains of a Byzantine church that was in use from the 5th to the 10th centuries, and which archaeologists say was the largest in the Galilee. They believe a large synagogue may have stood alongside it.

Last week, the New York Times reported, based on unnamed sources within the Trump administration, that the president had asked Israel not to carry out a planned strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. That is, somebody deliberately gave this information to the press, which later tried to confirm it by speaking with other officials. Amit Segal writes that, “according to figures in Israel’s security establishment,” this is “the most serious leak in Israel’s history.” He explains:

As Israel is reportedly planning what may well be one of its most consequential military operations ever, the New York Times lays out for the Iranians what Israel will target, when it will carry out the operation, and how. That’s not just any other leak.

Seth Mandel looks into the leaker’s logic:

The primary purpose of the [Times] article is not as a record of internal deliberations but as an instrument of policy itself. Namely, to obstruct future U.S. and Israeli foreign policy by divulging enough details of Israel’s plans in order to protect Iran’s nuclear sites. The idea is to force Israeli planners back to the drawing board, thus delaying a possible future strike on Iran until Iranian air defenses have been rebuilt.

The leak is the point. It’s a tactical play, more or less, to help Iran torpedo American action.

The leaker, Mandel explains—and the Times itself implies—is likely aligned with the faction in the administration that wants to see the U.S. retreat from the world stage and from its alliance with Israel, a faction that includes Vice-President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and the president’s own chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Yet it’s also possible, if less likely, that the plans were leaked in support of administration policy rather than out of factional infighting. Eliezer Marom argues that the leak was “part of the negotiations and serves to clarify to the Iranians that there is a real attack plan that Trump stopped at the last moment to conduct negotiations.”