Last week, NASA announced that its scientists had discovered evidence that water lies beneath the surface of the planet Mars. Peter Berger reflects on the link between religion and our fascination with the possibility of life on other planets:

Contemplating the night sky full of stars probably led individuals to a sense of both awe and vulnerability even in ancient times—say, some Israelite resting alone for a quiet moment in the clear desert air on the endless journey [from Egypt] to the Holy Land. I don’t think it is an oversimplification to say that all religion is an attempt to answer the question of whether we insignificant beings are alone in the universe. Alleged answers then come, in innumerable versions, asserting that no, we are not alone, and that there is an order of meaning that encompasses the distant stars and our own rather pitiful lives.

But modern science has vastly (indeed “astronomically”) expanded our perception of the star-filled sky—millions and millions of galaxies expanding or contracting, with a strange counter-world of “dark matter,” operating by laws that are increasingly unimaginable and incomprehensible. And now come along some astronomers—mind you, sober scientists, not initiates of some mystical doctrine—who claim that there is actual empirical evidence of not just the immense universe of the galaxies that our telescopes explore, but of a possibly infinite number of parallel universes operating by laws that we cannot imagine in our wildest dreams.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”