The book of Kings, describing the glory of King Solomon’s reign, states:

And this is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised; for to build the house of the Lord, and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer. For Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, and taken Gezer, and burnt it with fire, and slain the Canaanites that dwelt in the city, and given it for a present unto his daughter, Solomon’s wife. And Solomon built Gezer, and lower Beth Horon. . . . And all the cities of store that Solomon had, and cities for his chariots, and cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.

Archaeologists are divided about this and similar passages. There is no extrabiblical evidence of Solomon, but the real question for scholars is whether, around the time of David and Solomon, Judean monarchs ruled a large kingdom roughly the size of modern Israel, or just a small chiefdom comprising Jerusalem and surrounding hills. Recent excavations at Gezer, located in the lowlands west of the Judean hill country (known as the Shephelah), support the biblical story of a larger kingdom. Marek Dospel reports, citing the work of the two men who led these excavations:

Steven Ortiz and Samuel Wolff . . . present “new archaeological evidence from Gezer that in the time of Solomon, the city did indeed boast a monumental gate and administrative complex that was meant to convey power and authority over newly acquired territories in the Shephelah.”

“It was during Solomon’s reign, in the mid-10th century BCE, that Gezer underwent a radical change. It became a well-fortified city with a massive six-chambered gate, an adjoining casemate wall, and a large administrative building,” write Ortiz and Wolff. Their excavations “confirm that during the 10th century, Gezer was a fortified city most likely administered by a royal authority.”

As Israel moves closer to dismantling Hamas’s rule in Gaza, it will soon have to start implementing an alternative form of local governance. To do so it will likely draw on a confidential report produced by a team of Israeli scholars that has been circulating in the highest ranks of the government and military for the past few weeks.

One of the report’s authors, Netta Barak-Corren, discussed some of its suggestions recently with Dan Senor, addressing what can be learned from what the U.S. got right in Japan and Germany after World War II, and got wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan: