About a millennium ago, the residents of the cities of Nitzana, Haluza, and Shivita in southern Israel forsook their homes. Ronit Vered reports on archaeologists’ attempt to find out why (free registration required):

According to numerous critics, many of whom have positions at prestigious think tanks and publications, the normalization agreements the Jewish state reached with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain constituted an abandonment of the Palestinians. Peter Berkowitz argues that, to the contrary, the Abraham Accords can help to improve the lot of the Palestinians, and to reduce the intensity of their conflict with Israel: