In the 7th or 8th century CE, a ship now known as the Ma’agan Michael B sunk into the Mediterranean not far from what is now Haifa. Because it was buried in sand, the vessel was very well preserved, and has been studied extensively. Sahir Pandey reports on some of the latest research:

Most significant has been the find of the “largest maritime cargo assemblage of Byzantine and early Islamic ceramics discovered along the Israeli coast to date,” according to preliminary findings of the study published in the Journal of the Council for British Research in the Levant. These consist largely of late Roman amphorae and globular amphorae, several of them bearing inscriptions. . . . The ship appeared to be carrying a cargo, among other things, of walnuts from Turkey and fish sauce made of fish caught in the Sea of Galilee.

Interestingly, the evidence points to the ship being manned by a crew of diverse faiths and possibly ethnicity. . . . Christian crosses were found alongside Muslim blessings such as “Bismillah,” meaning “in the name of God,” and Greek and Arabic letters carved into the walls. The absence of human remains indicates that the crew had a lucky escape when the ship sank close to shore.

But that is not all. The well-preserved remains of the ship also contain an unusual source of information. The skeletons of rats that once infested the ship are proving to be very useful in finding out more about life aboard the ship before it ran aground, cutting short its career.

Some of the remains were of black rats, a species that had reached the Middle East aboard trading ships from South Asia and India more than 2,000 years ago. However, dental morphology revealed that others were “exotic to the area.” They may have come from Tunisia or Corsica.

If so, there was much more trade going on in the Land of Israel at the time than previously assumed.

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.