An Israeli Astronaut Will Take an Ancient Symbol of Jewish Liberation to Space

Next year, Eytan Stibbe will be the second Israeli in history to participate in a manned space mission. Michael Bachner describes the historical artifact he plans to take along:

Stibbe has chosen to take [a] 1,900-year-old coin with him on the Rakia mission to the International Space Station, scheduled for early next year. Stibbe said that he is taking the artifact with him as a symbol of his Jewish heritage.

The coin . . . dates to the second Jewish revolt against the Romans, also known as the Bar Kokhba revolt, bearing the name of its leader, Shimon Bar Kokhba. It was found in recent years and unveiled last March along with countless rare artifacts from the “Cave of Horror” in [the Judean desert], including dozens of 2,000-year-old biblical scroll fragments—the first such finds in 60 years.

Both sides of the coin—which is from the second year of the revolt—bear Jewish symbols typical of the Second Temple period: a palm tree with the inscription “Shimon” . . . on one side; and a vine leaf with the inscription “Year two of the freedom of Israel” on the other. Stibbe said that for him, the coin “represents the connection to the land, the love of the country, and the desire of the population of Israel in those years for independence.”

Read more at Times of Israel

More about: Archaeology, Israeli society, Simon bar Kokhba, Space exploration

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