At this time of year, the weekly Torah readings tell the story of Joseph in Egypt, one that begins when he is sold into slavery by a group of Midianite merchants passing through Israel. In two weeks, Jews in synagogues will read of Moses’ flight from Egypt to Midian, friendship with a Midianite priest, and marriage to a Midianite woman. The same nation appears again in the books of Numbers and Judges—mostly as enemies. But not much is known about them. An ongoing excavation of the Qurayyah oasis in northwestern Saudi Arabia (the probable location of ancient Midian) has shed some light on their territory between the fourth and first millennia BCE. Marek Dospěl writes:

The site is dominated by a massive rock plateau where elite graves may belong to the settlement’s earliest occupants. Over the centuries that followed, the site’s inhabitants developed a fortified residential area, an industrial district, and a cemetery. The virtually uninterrupted occupation of the site in this inhospitable region was possible only thanks to an ingenious system of water collection and distribution. Archaeologists mapped and documented a web of channels and dams that collected and managed seasonal rain runoff, bringing water to Qurayyah’s fields and orchards.

Beginning in the third millennium, these technological advances transformed Qurayyah into a large urban oasis, which had no contemporary parallels in Mesopotamia or Egypt. The site’s growing importance and wealth was also due to the local metallurgical activities and long-distance trade.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.