Using cutting-edge metallurgical techniques, a group of Israeli archaeologists have analyzed four figurines from an ancient Egyptian city, and determined that they were made with copper from the mines of Timna, located near what is now Israel’s southern tip. The statuettes date to about 1,000 BCE, or around the time of Kings David and Solomon. Rosella Tercatin writes:

The findings . . . shed new light on the relations between Egypt and the populations of the Levant. And according to Erez Ben Yosef, [one of the coordinators of the study], they offer an additional [piece of evidence] to support his view that a nomadic kingdom at the time could constitute a wealthy and sophisticated society capable of entertaining complex commercial relations with foreign entities, offering important insights not only on what was happening in Timna—which he believes at the time was part of the biblical kingdom of Edom—but also in the Jerusalem of King David and King Solomon.

While the archaeologist believes that Timna was part of the Edomite kingdom, which is prominently featured in the Bible, he has also suggested that what was happening at Timna was still very connected to the vicissitudes of contemporary Jerusalem. Jerusalem could have indirectly controlled the mines—as the biblical text itself suggests when it narrates how David conquered Edom.

Stephen Daisley writes about the slaying of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim:

Yaron and Sarah were murdered in a climate of lies and vilification and hatred. . . . The more institutions participate in this collective madness, the more madness there will be. The more elected officials and NGOs misrepresent the predictable consequences of asymmetric warfare in densely populated territories, where much of the infrastructure of everyday life has a dual civilian/terrorist purpose, the more the citizenries of North America and Europe will come to regard Israelis and Jews as a people who lust unquenchably after blood.

The most intolerant anti-Zionism is becoming a mainstream view, indulged by liberal societies, more concerned with not conflating irrational hatred of Israel with irrational hatred of Jews—as though the distinction between the two is all that well defined anymore.

For years now, and especially after the October 7 massacre, the call has gone up from the pro-Palestinian movement to put Palestine at the heart of Western politics. To pursue the struggle against Zionism in every country, on every platform, and in every setting. To wage worldwide resistance to Israel, not only in Wadi al-Far’a but in Washington, DC. “Globalize the intifada,” they chanted. This is what it looks like.