Yesterday, Eilat Mazar, a leading Israeli archaeologist who pioneered the excavation of ancient Jerusalem, died at the age of sixty-four. The granddaughter of Benjamin Mazar—who along with the soldier-scholar Yigael Yadin helped to establish the field of Israeli archaeology—she has done perhaps more than anyone to show how ancient structures and artifacts fit into the biblical narrative. Mazar was most recently engaged in the excavation of a royal complex south of the Temple Mount where, in 2018, she identified an ancient clay seal that may have belonged to the prophet Isaiah. But her most famous, and perhaps most controversial, finding was the ruins of building she believed was likely King David’s palace. She described how she came to this discovery in a 2006 essay:

There can be little doubt that King David had a palace. The Bible tells us that Hiram of Tyre (who would later help King Solomon build the Temple) constructed the palace for David: “King Hiram of Tyre sent envoys to David, with cedar logs, carpenters and stonemasons; and they built a palace for David” (2Samuel 5:11). Nine years ago [i.e., in 1997], I wrote an article . . . suggesting [that] the remains of King David’s palace might lie . . . in the northern part of the most ancient area of Jerusalem, known as the City of David.

I was struck by this idea while engaged in other research on the archaeology of Jerusalem. I had noticed the findings of the well-known British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon, who dug here in the 1960s. In [what she termed] Area H, at the northern end of the City of David, Kenyon discovered a section of a massive public structure that she considered to be part of a new casemate wall built by King Solomon. She dated the wall, on the basis of the pottery associated with it, to the 10th century BCE, the time of King David and King Solomon, according to the Bible. . . . Perhaps this casemate wall, I speculated, was part of David’s palace.

Aside from the archeological discoveries there, the site fit quite well with . . . 2Samuel 5:17, which describes David in the City of David going down, or descending from his residence to the citadel or fortress (m’tsudah). The citadel or fortress to which he descended was of course the Jebusite stronghold, the “Fortress of Zion” that he had conquered a short time earlier.

It is clear from the topography of the City of David that David could have gone down to the citadel only from the north, as the city is surrounded by deep valleys on every other side. It also makes sense that the Jebusite stronghold would have been located at the high point in the City of David, that is, in its northernmost section. . . . If this was in fact the case, one can infer that after conquering the city, David’s palace was constructed north of this citadel (David went down to the fortress) and outside the northern fortifications of the city.

With this hypothesis in mind, Mazar set out to excavate the area, and found remains that, as she put it, “square perfectly with the biblical description” of David’s palace.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.