The History and Modern Meaning of Joseph’s Tomb

On April 9, the shrine revered by Jews as the burial place of the biblical Joseph was vandalized by a Palestinian mob—and not for the first time. David Isaac traces the ancient and recent history of Joseph’s tomb, explaining why many Arabs are intent on destroying it and why Jewish pilgrims continue to visit despite the risks.

Though under the Oslo agreements the tomb remained in Israeli hands despite being located in Area A of Judea and Samaria, the government abandoned the site days after a deadly attack there in October 1, 2000. Following that attack, in which an Israeli border policeman was killed, the government decided that its location in Nablus (biblical Shechem) made it too difficult to defend. Although the government did elicit a promise from the Palestinian Authority that the site would be protected after Israeli security forces withdrew, it was destroyed shortly afterwards.

However, two years later, security conditions in Judea and Samaria had deteriorated to the point that the Israel Defense Force again began operating in the city. At first, small groups of Jews made risky attempts to visit the tomb, unauthorized and without IDF escort. Larger groups now enter at night, accompanied by heavy military presence.

Why does Joseph’s Tomb continue to attract Jewish pilgrims despite the dangers?

Jeffrey Woolf, professor of Talmud at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, cited three main reasons: 1) Jewish tradition considers it one of three sites in ancient Israel in which “the world will have absolutely no claims against us”; 2) a written record stretching back 1,700 years identifies the current site as Joseph’s Tomb, and, Woolf says, “we can assume an oral tradition that goes back even further”; and, 3) Joseph’s story symbolizes the Jewish people’s longing to return to their homeland.

Read more at JNS

More about: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Palestinian terror

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