For many years, Israeli archaeologists have recruited volunteers to engage in the time-consuming project of sifting through rubble to look for ancient artifacts. One such volunteer, an eighteen-year-old Israeli named Hallel Feidman, recently found something very unusual, as the Algemeiner reports:

A gold bead dating back to at least the 5th century has been unearthed in the City of David in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Wednesday, in a find that has been described as “very, very special.” The bead was crafted using unique and delicate workmanship, which saw multiple small gold balls affixed together in a ring pattern. It was nestled in dirt removed from a Roman structure uncovered in the excavation of the Pilgrimage Road, a roughly 2,000-year-old pathway in the City of David that is believed to have been used to ascend to the Second Temple.

Amir Golani, a jewelry expert with the Israel Antiquities Authority, said the find was remarkable. “Throughout all my years in archaeology, I have found gold perhaps once or twice, so to find gold jewelry, is something very, very special.”

The bead is likely part of a necklace or bracelet that required additional beads, he noted. “Whoever could afford a piece like this made from gold was an affluent person, with means.”

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”