The Bible makes frequent mention of a horned animal called a r’em, often invoked as symbol of might or majesty. Following the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, which render the word as monoceros and unicornis, respectively, the King James Bible translates it as “unicorn.” Other translations include wild ox, buffalo, and rhinoceros, but there is reason to think that the r’em is in fact an oryx, found in Israel’s deserts since ancient times. Amit Naor speculates that this beast may be the inspiration for legends of unicorns, and certainly for the reports of unicorn sightings in the Land of Israel:

The oryx is a type of large antelope; there are several different species of oryx living around Africa and the Middle East. The kind found in Israel and the surrounding countries is the white or Arabian oryx, its coat mostly white, with two long, straight horns on its head.

Wait a minute—two horns? . . . Bear with me.

[I]n one of the first [printed] books containing an account of a journey to the Holy Land, composed by the German traveler Bernhard von Breydenbach around 1485, we find an illustration of various animals he spotted during his travels. Breydenbach traveled from Venice to Jaffa, making his way to Jerusalem before later heading south to the Sinai desert. The illustration shows a number of exotic animals including a camel, a crocodile, a goat, a salamander, and—a unicorn. Breydenbach wrote that he got a brief glimpse of one in the Sinai.

According to one theory, the oryx’s long, straight horns may appear as a single horn if the animal is viewed from the side. A viewer who is only able to get a quick glimpse from such an angle might mistake the oryx for a large horse with a single horn. . . . [A]nother theory suggests that the stories are based on oryxes who lost one of their horns at some point, as these protrusions never grow back.

Israel will likely respond directly against Iran after yesterday’s attack, and has made known that it will calibrate its retaliation based not on the extent of the damage, but on the scale of the attack. The specifics are anyone’s guess, but Edward Luttwak has a suggestion, put forth in an article published just hours before the missile barrage: cut off Tehran’s ability to send money and arms to Shiite Arab militias.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. . . . In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometers from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeida in Yemen—a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again [on Sunday].