In portraying the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed, Jewish and Christian iconography has traditionally shown them as two stones, side by side, with curved tops. Yet the Bible says nothing about their shape or disposition, while the Talmud simply states that they were rectangular. Out of deference to the latter, the chief rabbinate of Israel has decided to change its logo to display the tablets as rectangles. Shalom Bear cites an archaeologist with a different opinion:

Stephen G. Rosenberg . . . has posited that the two tablets weren’t two stones at all, but rather two sides of the same stone. In part he bases [his opinion] on the choice of words used for describing the tablet(s) in Hebrew, luḥot, which is similar to another biblical word, leḥi, [meaning] cheek.

Rosenberg’s theory is that half the commandments were written on one side (cheek) of the stone, and the other half were written on the opposite side (cheek) of the same stone, similar to the way in which many other ancient codes of law (such as the Code of Hammurabi) were engraved onto stone.

If there is to be peace, Palestinians will have to unlearn the hatred of Israel they have imbibed during nearly two decades of Hamas rule. This will be a difficult task, but Cole Aronson argues, drawing on the experiences of World War II, that Israel has already gotten off to a strong start:

The population’s compliance can . . . be won by a new regime that satisfies its immediate material needs, even if that new regime is sponsored by a government until recently at war with the population’s former regime. Axis civilians were made needy through bombing. Peaceful compliance with the Allies became a good alternative to supporting violent resistance to the Allies.

Israel’s current campaign makes a moderate Gaza more likely, not less. Destroying Hamas not only deprives Islamists of the ability to rule—it proves the futility of armed resistance to Israel, a condition for peace. The destruction of buildings not only deprives Hamas of its hideouts. It also gives ordinary Palestinians strong reasons to shun groups planning to replicate Hamas’s behavior.