According to the biblical narrative, Jewish history in the Land of Israel begins with Abraham, who would have lived in the middle part of the third millennium BCE. Excavations of the area often yield findings from much earlier eras. Gavriel Fiske reports on one:

Israeli archaeologists have reconstructed a 6,000-year-old vessel made of elephant ivory, which had been shattered in antiquity and preserved inside a basalt stone container for millennia, the Israel Antique Authority announced Tuesday.

The rare item was discovered in 2020 at Horvat Raqiq, an archaeological site near Beersheba in southern Israel, during infrastructure work to lay a water pipe. . . . The vessel has been dated to the Chalcolithic period (4500–3500 BCE), also known as the Copper Age, a time in human development—between the agricultural Neolithic revolution and the later Bronze Age—that saw increased cultural development, the smelting of copper, and expanded trade networks.

Scientists believe that by analyzing the chemical makeup of the ivory, they can gather information about the diet of the elephant it came from, and thus determine where the elephant lived. (A short video about the item can be found at the link below.)

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.