In a prelude to the discovery of the New World, Iberian sailors ventured to a number of islands in the Atlantic. One of these is Saõ Tomé, an island 150 miles off the African coast that was uninhabited when the Portuguese discovered it in 1470. M. Dores Cruz, Larissa Thomas, and M. Nazaré Ceita report on their recent archaeological investigation of a sugar mill and estate house—and include a tantalizing detail:

In the 16th century CE, São Tomé was a major nexus between Europe and Africa, yet the island was perceived as remote and lethal; early settlement was rarely voluntary: it primarily involved degredados (transported convicts), and Jewish children from Portugal, and enslaved people from the African coast.

Sugarcane fields [on the island] are first documented in 1506, and by 1517 production had taken off, with two sugar mills in operation and plans to build ten more. Although enslaved Africans had been brought to populate the island, since 1495, the labor-intensive nature of sugar production spurred the importation of far greater numbers, mainly from Benin, Congo, and Angola. São Tomé became the first plantation economy in the tropics based on sugar monoculture and slave labor, a model exported to the New World where it developed and expanded.

There were hundreds of these Portuguese Jewish children, mostly refugees from Spain—whence they had been expelled a year before—who were exiled to São Tomé in 1493 by King John II. John’s successor, Manuel I, decreed in 1497 that all Portuguese Jews had to convert to Catholicism, or be forcibly baptized, and in 1506 deported thousands of these converts to São Tomé.

As we mentioned in yesterday’s newsletter, Israeli special forces carried out a daring boots-on-the-ground raid on September 8 targeting the Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in northwestern Syria. The site was used for producing and storing missiles which are then transferred to Hizballah in Lebanon. Jonathan Spyer notes that the raid was accompanied by extensive airstrikes in Syira,and followed a few days later by extensive attacks on Hizballah in Lebanon, one of which killed Mohammad Qassem al-Shaer, a senior officer in the terrorist group’s Radwan force, an elite infantry group. And yesterday, the IDF destroyed a weapons depot, an observation post, and other Hizballah positions. Spyer puts these attacks in context:

The direct purpose of the raid, of course, was the destruction of the facilities and materials targeted. But Israel also appeared to be delivering a message to the Syrian regime that it should not imagine itself to be immune should it choose to continue its involvement with the Iran-led axis’s current campaign against Israel.

Similarly, the killing of al-Shaer indicated that Israel is no longer limiting its response to Hizballah attacks to the border area. Rather, Hizballah operatives in Israel’s crosshairs are now considered fair game wherever they may be located in Lebanon.

The SSRC raid and the killing of al-Shaer are unlikely to have been one-off events. Rather, they represent the systematic broadening of the parameters of the conflict in the north. Hizballah commenced the current round of fighting on October 8, in support of Hamas in Gaza. It has vowed to stop firing only when a ceasefire is reached in the south—a prospect which currently seems distant.