Was King Saul Impaled on the Wall of Beth Shean? By Amihai Mazar.

Tel Beth Shean rising above the ruins of Hellenistic/Roman Scythopolis. The Philistines hung the lifeless bodies of King Saul and three of his sons from the walls of Beth Shean, according to the Bible (1 Samuel 31; 1 Chronicles 10). When approaching an important and impressive site like Tel Beth Shean, archaeologists seek to understand more about the Biblical stories as well as answer questions about the broader history of the site and the people who lived there.

Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines, and many fell on Mount Gilboa. The Philistines overtook Saul and his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan and Abinadab and Malchishua, the sons of Saul. The battle pressed hard upon Saul; the archers found him, and he was badly wounded by them. Then Saul said to his armour-bearer, “Draw your sword and thrust me through with it, so that these uncircumcised may not come and thrust me through, and make sport of me.” But his armour-bearer was unwilling; for he was terrified. So Saul took his own sword and fell upon it. When his armour-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him. So Saul and his three sons and his armour-bearer and all his men died together on the same day. When the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley and those beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook their towns and fled; and the Philistines came and occupied them.

The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. They cut off his head, stripped off his armour, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the houses of their idols and to the people. They put his armour in the temple of Astarte; and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan. But when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant men set out, travelled all night long, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan. They came to Jabesh and burned them there. Then they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted for seven days.

—1 Samuel 31. New Revised Standard Version.


Was King Saul Impaled on the Wall of Beth Shean? By Amihai Mazar. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 38, No. 2 (March/April 2012).

Ancient Inscription Refers to Birth of Israelite Monarchy. By Gerard Leval. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 38, No. 3 (May/June 2012).

State Formation in the Hebrew Bible: An Institutional Economic Perspective. By Sigmund Wagner-Tsukamoto. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Vol. 37, No. 4 (June 2013).

State Formation Theory and the Kingdom of Ancient Israel. By Daniel M. Master. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 60, No. 2 (April 2001).

The Rise of Secondary States in the Iron Age Levant. By Alexander H. Joffe. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 45, No. 4 (2002).

Political Rights and Power in Monarchic Israel. By Douglas A. Knight. Semeia, No. 66 (1994).

The Emergence of the Monarchy in Israel: The Environmental and Socio-Economic Aspects. By Israel Finkelstein. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, No. 44 (June 1989).

When Pharaohs Ruled Jerusalem. By Peter Van Der Veen. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 39, No. 2 (March/April 2013). NJBR, February 26, 2013.

Archaeologists Reveal a Desecrated Iron Age Temple and Find Possible Evidence of Samson at Beth Shemesh. NJBR, February 9, 2013.

How We Know When Solomon Ruled. By Kenneth A. Kitchen. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 27, No. 5 (September/October 2001).

The Israelite Village: Cultural Conservatism and Technological Innovation. By Avraham Faust. Tel Aviv, Vol. 32, No. 2 (September 2005).

How Did Israel Become a People? The Genesis of Israelite Identity. By Avraham Faust. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 35, No. 6 (November/December 2009).

Early Israel: An Egalitarian Society. By Avraham Faust. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 39, No. 4 (July/August 2013).

“Mortuary Practices, Society and Ideology”: The Lack of Iron Age I Burials in the Highlands in Context. By Avraham Faust. Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 54, No. 2 (2004).

Ethnic Complexity in Northern Israel During Iron Age II. By Avraham Faust. Palestine Exploration Quarterly, Vol. 132, No. 1 (January 2000).

The Emergence of Iron Age Israel: The Question of “Origins.” By Avraham Faust. UCSD Exodus Conference, May 31-June 1, 2013. Video. Calit2ube, June 7, 2013. YouTube. Also at Exodus: Out of Egypt website. Calit2.net.




Ethnicity, Assimilation and the Israelite Settlement. By Pekka Pitkänen. Tyndale Bulletin, Vol. 55, No. 2 (2004).

Ancient Israel and settler colonialism. By Pekka Pitkänen. Settler Colonial Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2014).

Migrations, Ethnogenesis, and Settlement Dynamics: Israelites in Iron Age Canaan and Shuwa-Arabs in the Chad Basin. By Thomas E. Levy and Augustin F. C. Holl. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Vol. 21, No. 1, (March 2002).

Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel, 1300-1100 B.C.E. By Ann E. Killebrew. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005.

A Comparison of Two Contemporaneous Lifestyles of the Late Second Millennium B.C. By Gloria London. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 273 (February 1989).

I Samuel 25 as Literature and as History. By Jon D. Levenson. Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 1 (January 1978).

An Anthropologist’s View of Early Israel. By Jill Katz. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 38, No. 3 (May/June 2012).

Israelite Life Before the Kings. By Robert D. Miller. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 39, No. 2 (March/April 2013).


Mazar:

The next period, the Late Bronze Age, produced the earliest spectacular finds from Beth Shean. They date from the mid-15th century to the mid-12th century B.C.E. At this time the site became an administrative center and garrison town of Egypt’s New Kingdom empire that then ruled Canaan. The University of Pennsylvania expedition uncovered a wealth of buildings and artifacts from this period (Egyptian dynasties XVIII, XIX and XX), including successive temples, administrative buildings, a governor’s house, and a number of inscribed stelae, door lintels and statues erected by Pharaohs Seti I, Ramesses II and Ramesses III. Our excavations uncovered additional Egyptian administrative and residential buildings. Both expeditions revealed a rich collection of artifacts reflecting the high status of the Egyptian officials stationed here. They were living in what might be called “little Egypt.” Their pottery was manufactured by Egyptian potters who produced vessels similar to those in Egypt. Seals (and seal impressions), cult objects, jewelry and other artifacts were made in Egyptian style. Houses were decorated with Egyptian-style wall paintings.

During the 13th–12th centuries B.C.E., Egyptian garrison members were buried in anthropoid pottery coffins, a practice known in Egypt and at several Egyptian strongholds in southern Canaan, such as Deir el-Balah south of Gaza. Almost 50 of these anthropoid coffins (mostly just small pieces) were recovered at Beth Shean. These finds provide dramatic evidence of the extent of Egyptian domination of Canaan in the period when the earliest Israelites just began to settle in the hill country south of Beth Shean.

The portraits on some of the anthropoid coffin lids from Beth Shean were made in a kind of “grotesque” style foreign to Egypt. At one time it was thought that these might be the coffins of Philistines, especially because of the “feather” headdress on one of the coffin lids and other signs on two other lids that resemble the headdress of the Philistines and other “Sea Peoples” pictured on the wall of the temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu in Egypt. But as suggested already in 1973 by Eliezer Oren, it is now clear that the anthropoid coffins at Beth Shean and elsewhere are related to Egyptian garrisons there during the late New Kingdom. The most that one can say is that the three coffins in the “grotesque” style with those special signs belonged to mercenaries in the Egyptian garrison; we know that the Egyptians hired mercenaries among the population groups known as the Sea Peoples (they included Sherden and Danuna as well as Philistines). Whether there were a few Philistines (mercenaries) among them at Beth Shean we cannot tell. In any case, the use of those anthropoid coffins ended with the end of the Egyptian presence in Canaan, no later than about 1130 B.C.E., at a time when the Philistines had just begun their settlements in Philistia and much earlier than the time of the assumed battle against Saul, which, if historical, must have occurred closer to 1000 B.C.E.

Toward 1140/30 B.C.E. the Egyptian presence in Canaan came to an end. Beth Shean was destroyed by heavy fire, perhaps after being captured by local Canaanites who were happy to get rid of their then-weakened foreign rulers.

During the late 12th–11th century B.C.E., the town was resettled and the destroyed residential quarter was rebuilt. The material culture this time, however, is Canaanite. The local Canaanite population simply replaced the Egyptian garrison.

This is the city that existed when the battle of Gilboa between Saul and the Philistines is supposed to have taken place. But there is no evidence of a Philistine presence at Beth Shean at this time. Philistine painted pottery, which is quite distinctive, is absent from Beth Shean, though it was found in small quantities at Tel Rehov to the south, as well as at a few other sites in the Jezreel Valley. Beth Shean, however, was never a Philistine town. If the Biblical story has historical validity, if the Philistines hung Saul’s body on the wall of Beth Shean, the most that we can assume is that the Philistines who arrived from the southern coastal plain took over the local Canaanite town for a short time—but such an event cannot be corroborated by archaeology.

What about the wall of Beth Shean where the Bible says the bodies of Saul and his sons were hung? After all, walls are an archaeological specialty. Alas, no fortification walls have been found at Beth Shean—from any period. Benny Arubas, the architect of the Hebrew University excavations of the Roman city at lower Beth Shean, has suggested an explanation, however. The critical part of the mound with the wall may have been cut off in the Roman period during the construction of Scythopolis at the foot of the mound. The main street of this Roman city was a very wide, straight road flanked by roofed sidewalks and shops. The adjacent tell interfered with this plan. Therefore the entire southern and perhaps also part of the western portions of the mound were simply cut away by huge earth works. This would leave no chance for 20th-century archaeologists to find any fortifications on these sides of the mound. On the other sides of the mound, excavations were not carried out to a sufficient depth due to thick occupation deposits of later periods. For this reason, we have no archaeological confirmation of the Biblical account. It could have been a historical event or it could be a literary construct. Archaeology has not provided a clear answer.

The Canaanite town of the Iron Age I came to an end some time around 1000 B.C.E. We found some evidence for violent destruction, but the exact circumstances of the end of this town remain unknown.

A new city was built during the Iron IIa period, dated to the tenth–ninth centuries B.C.E. We discovered the remains of three substantial buildings from this period on the summit of the mound. Their wide mudbrick walls were laid on large basalt stone foundations with charred wooden beams between the bricks and the stone foundation. These structures had been part of an administrative complex. If indeed this complex was constructed during the tenth century B.C.E., it would agree with the Biblical notice that Beth Shean was one of three important towns in one of Solomon’s administrative districts (the other two being Megiddo and Tanaach; see 1 Kings 4:12).

These buildings were destroyed in a fierce conflagration. When and how this happened is somewhat of a question. The Bible records an attack on Jerusalem by Shishak, king of Egypt, five years after the death of Solomon, during the reign of his son Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:25). Scholars agree that Biblical Shishak is Pharaoh Sheshonq I of Egypt. His campaign into Judah and Israel c. 920 B.C.E. is recorded in detail on a wall of the Egyptian temple at Karnak. Among the cities he claims to have conquered is Beth Shean. Shishak’s campaign surely tends to confirm Beth Shean’s importance in Solomon’s time and may explain the fiery destruction at the site. Yet I must admit that our pottery chronology is not sufficiently developed to enable us to date precisely the final destruction of these buildings. It may have occurred either in the late tenth or in the ninth century B.C.E. If the later date is accepted, the destruction could have been caused by the wars between Israel and the Arameans, rather than by Shishak’s campaign. It is difficult to decide between these two alternatives.

Following this destruction, Beth Shean was rebuilt yet again and continued to be a thriving town in the northern kingdom of Israel. Both the University of Pennsylvania expedition and the Hebrew University expedition found significant structures from this time period. A typical Israelite “four-room house” excavated by our expedition is exceptional in its size and contained massive mudbrick walls that probably carried a second floor. It was destroyed and burnt with the rest of the town in a great fire probably set by the Assyrians when they conquered the northern part of the Kingdom of Israel in 732 B.C.E. The devastation was total, followed by hundreds of years of an occupational gap.


Katz:

Let me conclude with an example from my own research. Recently I have been exploring ancient Israel through the lens of social and political complexity. While most Biblical archaeologists agree that Iron Age I Israel (c. 1200–1000 B.C.E.; the period of the Judges) was a tribal society, there has not been much discussion on what that really means, that is, what kind of tribal society was ancient Israel?

To find out, I began by culling the anthropological literature on tribal societies, from “Big Man” to “acephalous” (literally, “without a head”) to chiefdoms. I then used these paradigms to construct a model of how they might be identified in the archaeological record. Finally, I compared the actual archaeological record with my model. This has led me to conclude that Iron Age I Israel best fits the paradigm of a “Big Man” society.

In brief, “Big Man” societies generally correspond with small, autonomous, village-based agricultural communities. Good examples of “Big Man” societies are found in Melanesia and New Guinea where the typical village size is about 100 people. Leadership is informal and emerges out of achievement based on charisma, personality, etc.; it is not inherited. No one is considered inherently superior to anyone else, and this egalitarianism is manifest in uniform material wealth. The giving of gifts is important for establishing relationships and reciprocal obligations.

By using this ethnographic material, we give ourselves a new avenue for interpreting early Israel. That leadership was conceived of as informal during the period of the Judges is expressed most clearly in an episode concerning Gideon. After a successful campaign against Midian, the “men of Israel” specifically request that Gideon and his children become permanent leaders: “Rule over us, you, your son, and your grandson as well” (Judges 8:22). Gideon rejects the offer on behalf of himself and his children in the spirit that the “Lord alone shall rule over you” (Judges 8:23).

While this passage makes explicit that the Judges (shoftim) did not pass on their leadership from generation to generation, only the anthropological literature can inform us just how hard it is to be a leader when you have no formal authority. You have to beg, nag, harass and persuade people to do what you want. You have to be a good talker and patient and persistent. Your reward is the reward of leadership and no more. Yet these leaders emerge, and the rest of the people tolerate them, egg them on and benefit from their hard work.

This type of political organization can continue unimpeded for centuries, even millennia. But in certain circumstances, a threshold is crossed and a new type of leadership emerges, that of a chief who is given (or seizes) significant power and authority. How does this happen? We’ll just have to ask an anthropologist.

The Hellenistic/Roman city of Scythopolis from Tel Beth Shean

Cultic Practices at Tel Dan – Was the Northern Kingdom of Israel Deviant?

The bamah (high place) of King Jeroboam I of Israel at Dan, c. 920 BC. Ashley Lauwereins.

Then Jeroboam said to himself, “Now the kingdom may well revert to the house of David. If this people continues to go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, the heart of this people will turn again to their master, King Rehoboam of Judah; they will kill me and return to King Rehoboam of Judah.” So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold. He said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” He set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. And this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one at Bethel and before the other as far as Dan. He also made houses on high places, and appointed priests from among all the people, who were not Levites. Jeroboam appointed a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like the festival that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar; so he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made. He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, in the month that he alone had prescribed; he appointed a festival for the people of Israel, and he went up to the altar to offer incense.

—1 Kings 12: 26-33. New Revised Standard Version.


Cultic Practices at Tel Dan – Was the Northern Kingdom Deviant? By Jonathan Greer. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 38, No. 2 (March/April 2012).

Did the Northern Kingdom of Israel Practice Customary Ancient Israelite Religion? Bible History Daily, February 17, 2012.

BHD:

There is very little archaeological evidence of royal ancient Israelite religion. While excavations throughout Israel have revealed evidence of Israelite “folk religion,” the center of elite ancient Israelite religion—the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—has remained archaeologically inaccessible. In his Archaeological Views column “Cultic Practices at Tel Dan—Was the Northern Kingdom Deviant?” archaeologist Jonathan Greer looks to Tel Dan in the northern kingdom of Israel for evidence of the official ancient Israelite religion.

In 1 Kings 12, King Jeroboam establishes a royal sanctuary for the northern kingdom of Israel in the city of Dan to compete with the Jerusalem Temple. Four decades of excavations at Tel Dan have uncovered myriad evidence of cultic activity at the site’s so-called “sacred precinct,” including temple architecture, the remains of a massive altar, cult stands and metal implements, all of which are associated with rites involving animal sacrifice.

Greer uses these finds to question just how “Israelite” the northern kingdom of Israel really was. Biblical writers often condemn the northern kingdom of Israel for heretical worship of foreign gods, and Greer examined the evidence from Tel Dan to assess these charges. Analyzing textual traditions and archaeological finds, especially faunal remains from animal sacrifice in the sacred precinct, Greer suggests that the northern cultic practices reflect ancient Israelite religion as described in the Bible.

Excavations at Tel Dan have yielded thousands of animal bones in the priestly and common worship areas of the sacred precinct. Greer concludes that the bone fragments indicate the practice of animal sacrifice as described in the Book of Leviticus. The priestly area of the sacred precinct at Tel Dan had a higher proportion of right-sided meaty long bones, while the common worship area featured more left-sided bones. This is consistent with descriptions of animal sacrifice in Exodus 29:27–28 and Leviticus 7:32–33.

Similarly, a high percentage of phalanges (toe bones) were recorded in the priestly area at Tel Dan, furthering the idea that the northern kingdom of Israel practiced ancient Israelite religion as detailed in the Bible. Leviticus 7:8 describes how a priest would keep the skin of a burnt offering, which would include the phalanges and hooves left intact during the skinning following the animal sacrifice. Beyond faunal evidence, Greer reveals further similarities between Tel Dan and the Biblical cult, citing artifacts such as an altar kit reminiscent of those used in Temple and Tabernacle rituals.

Greer’s studies of animal sacrifice and the archaeological evidence from Tel Dan suggest that ancient Israelite religion as practiced in the northern kingdom of Israel was not as deviant as is often thought.


Israelite Temple. Tel Dan Excavations.

Tel Dan Excavations website.

Tel Dan Stela: New Light on Aramaic and Jehu’s Revolt. By William M. Schniedewind. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 302 (May 1996).

Reconsidering the Iron Age II Strata at Tel Dan: Archaeological and Historical Implications. By Eran Arie. Tel Aviv, Vol. 35, No. 1 (March 2008).

Large Horned Altar, 10th-8th century BCE. By Elizabeth Bloch-Smith. The Center for Online Judaic Studies.

Sectionalism and the Schism. By Baruch Halpern. Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 93, No. 4 (December 1974).

Did Pharaoh Sheshonq Attack Jerusalem? By Yigal Levin. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 38, No. 4 (July/August 2012).

Tel Dan. By Ashley Lauwereins. This Week in History, July 11, 2011.

Tel Dan. The 80% Blog, April 10, 2010.

Spurned Samaria. By Noah Wiener. Bible History Daily, June 4, 2013.

Site of the capital of the Kingdom of Israel blighted by neglect.

Holy Land archaeological treasure hurt by politics. By Daniela Berretta. AP. Yahoo! News, June 3, 2013.

Iron Age gate and plaza at Tel Dan

Bill Maher: Ronald Reagan Was “The Original Teabagger.”

Bill Maher Savages Reagan: “The Original Teabagger,” “Pitchman For Batsh*t” Would Do Well In Modern GOP. By Josh Feldman. Mediaite, June 7, 2013.

Bill Maher: Ronald Reagan No Different Than Today’s Tea Party. By Progressive Liberal. Daily Kos, June 7, 2013.

MSNBC’s Bill Maher Trashes Ronald Reagan: He Was “The Original Pitchman For Batshit.” By Kristin Tate. Mr.Conservative, June 7, 2013. Also here.

Bill Maher: Reagan Is “The Man Most Responsible For Our Decline.” By Noel Sheppard. NewsBusters, June 8, 2013.

Bill Maher Slaughters Republican Sacred Cow Ronald Reagan. By Jason Easley. PoliticusUSA, June 8, 2013.

Similar articles at The Huffington Post, Politico, Red Alert Politics, and Breitbart.

Bill Maher: Ronald Reagan was “the Original Teabagger.” Video. TheBMView, June 8, 2013. YouTube. Also here and here.

Conservatism Is the GOP’s Problem. By Josh Barro.

I’m Not A Conservative And You Shouldn’t Be One Either. By Josh Barro. Business Insider, June 6, 2013.

Ask Josh Barro Anything: The Recent Evolution of Conservatism. By Andrew Sullivan. The Dish, June 5, 2013.

Gay-Baiting Josh Barro. By Andrew Sullivan. The Dish, June 4, 2013.

Erick Erickson Shows Everything That’s Wrong With The GOP. By Josh Barro. Business Insider, June 4, 2013.

On Conservative Reformers. By Erick Erickson. RedState, June 4, 2013.

Josh Barro, The Loneliest Republican. By Jonathan Chait. The Atlantic, May 22, 2013.

Why Republicans Lack a Compelling Economic Agenda. By Josh Barro. Bloomberg, November 14, 2012.

Female IDF Soldiers Post Racy Pictures on Facebook.

I’m Proud of Those Lewd IDF Girls. By Liel Leibovitz. Tablet, June 6, 2013.

Female IDF Soldiers Won’t Stop Taking Naked Photos, Posting on Facebook. By Stephanie Butnick. Jewcy, June 3, 2013.

Female Israeli soldiers disciplined for “unbecoming behavior” after posing for pictures dressed only in their underwear and combat fatigues. By Becky Evans. Daily Mail, June 3, 2013.

From behind: The photographed women were said to be new recruits stationed on a base in southern Israel.

Female Soldiers Defy IDF, Post More Semi-Nude Facebook Pics [NSFW]. By Neetzan Zimmerman. Gawker, June 3, 2013.

Female Israeli Soldiers Disciplined For Racy Facebook Photos. By Max J. Rosenthal. AP. The Huffington Post, June 2, 2013.

Female Israeli soldiers in big trouble for posting half-naked Facebook pics. By Taylor Bigler. The Daily Caller, June 4, 2013. Slideshow.

Naughty Israeli soldiers post more cheekypics after being disciplined for online snaps. By Selim Algar and Michael Blaustein. New York Post, June 3, 2013.

Female Israeli Soldiers Gone Wild. Video. Hollywood2NYIsback, June 2, 2013. YouTube. Also here.

How Come We Don’t Call RFK’s Assassination Palestinian Terrorism? By Gil Troy.

How Come We Don’t Call RFK’s Assassination Palestinian Terrorism? By Gil Troy. History News Network, June 6, 2013.

A Syrian Refugee Wedding. By Lauren Wolfe.

A Syrian Refugee Wedding. By Lauren Wolfe. The Nation, June 5, 2013. From the June 24-July 1, 2013 issue.

Early marriage and domestic violence in the camps are a fact of life for girls fleeing the civil war.

Family members and the groom (right) with a Syrian 15-year-old refugee in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan on May 4, 2013. (Photo by Heidi Levine/Sipa Press).

Russia’s Middle-East Gambit. By Dmitri Trenin.

Russia’s Middle-East Gambit. By Dmitri Trenin. Tablet, May 30, 2013.

The Moral Chasm and the Pursuit of Mideast Peace. By Richard Landes.

The Moral Chasm and the Pursuit of Peace. By Richard Landes. The Augean Stables, May 19, 2013.

Landes:

The bad news is that until the Palestinians grow up, there will be no peace, and that, at the moment, land concessions actually make things worse. And they won’t grow up as long as their “honor group” consists of other Arabs who live in fantasy worlds and they get support from “progressives” who think that they’re being brave and honorable by supporting their vengeful mentality.

The first Arab leader to wean his people from their scape-goating anti-Zionism will create the first productive, democratic Arab state. May it happen swiftly, in our days.


A tale of two hearts. By David Brog. The Times of Israel, May 18, 2013.

Nakbah Day: Commemorating the Greatest Humiliation in World History. By Richard Landes. The Augean Stables, May 16, 2013.

Why Arabs Lose Wars. By Norvell B. De Atkine. Middle East Quarterly, December 1999.

Donald Kagan on the Future of Liberal Education. By Jonathan Marks.

Donald Kagan on the Future of Liberal Education. By Jonathan Marks. Commentary, June 6, 2013.

Ave atque vale. By Donald Kagan. The New Criterion, June 2013. Also here.

Donald Kagan’s Last Stand for Western Civilization. By Matthew Kaminski. NJBR, April 27, 2013.

The Boys of Pointe du Hoc. By Ronald Reagan.

President Ronald Reagan salutes during a ceremony commemorating the 40th anniversary of D-day, the invasion of Europe. Wikimedia.

The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Remarks at a Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, D-day, June 6, 1984. By Ronald Reagan. The American Presidency Project. Also at Real Clear Politics, Reagan Archives, Mike’s America. Video at YouTube here and here.

President Reagan’s 1984 Normandy Speech. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, June 6, 2013.

The Boys of Pointe du Hoc. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, June 6, 2013.

The Greatest Generation Passing Into History. By Michael Barone. Real Clear Politics, June 6, 2013.








Reagan:

We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved and the world prayed for its rescue. Here, in Normandy, the rescue began. Here, the Allies stood and fought against tyranny, in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, two hundred and twenty-five Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.

Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.

And behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. And these are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your “lives fought for life and left the vivid air signed with your honor.”

I think I know what you may be thinking right now – thinking “we were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day.” Well everyone was. Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren’t. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into the ground around him.

Lord Lovat was with him – Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, “Sorry, I’m a few minutes late,” as if he'd been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he’d just come from the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.

There was the impossible valor of the Poles, who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold; and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.

All of these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore; The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland’s 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots’ Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England's armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard’s “Matchbox Fleet,” and you, the American Rangers.

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge – and pray God we have not lost it – that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought – or felt in their hearts, though they couldn’t know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 am. In Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying. And in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: “Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do.” Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together. There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the Atlantic alliance – a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.

In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. The Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They’re still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost forty years after the war. Because of this, allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.

It’s fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II. Twenty million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.

We will pray forever that someday that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We’re bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We’re bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe’s democracies. We were with you then; we’re with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”

Strengthened by their courage and heartened by their value [valor] and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.


Saving Private Ryan: Omaha Beach Scene [1998]. Sandra Prior, May 6, 2012. YouTube. Also here. The first 20 minutes of this film is the most accurate and realistic portrayal of the horror and butchery of June 6, 1944. These men sacrificed their lives so that we, their posterity, could live in freedom.

The Stagnant Mediterranean. By Victor Davis Hanson.

The Stagnant Mediterranean. By Victor Davis Hanson. National Review Online, June 6, 2013.

Hanson:

From the heights of Gibraltar you can see Africa about nine miles away to the south — and gaze eastward on the seemingly endless Mediterranean, which stretches 2,400 miles to Asia. Mare Nostrum, “our sea,” the Romans called the deep blue waters that allowed Rome to unite Asia, Africa, and Europe for half a millennium under a single, prosperous, globalized civilization.

 

Yet the Mediterranean has not always proved to be history’s incubator of great civilizations — Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Florentine, and Venetian. Sometimes the ancient “Pillars of Hercules” at the narrow mouth of the Mediterranean here at Gibraltar marked not so much a gateway to progress and prosperity as a cultural and commercial cul-de-sac.

 

With the rise of the Ottoman Empire, the old city-state powerhouses of Italy and Greece faded from history, as the Mediterranean became more a museum than a catalyst of global change. In contrast, the Reformation and the Enlightenment energized Northern European culture, safely distant from the front line of the exhausting wars with Islam.

 

By the early 17th century, Northern Europeans more easily and safely reached the rich eastern markets of China and India by maritime routes around Africa. The discovery of the New World further shifted wealth and cultural dynamism out of the Mediterranean.

 

For a while the Mediterranean seemed to roar back after World War II. Huge deposits of petroleum and natural gas were found in North Africa. The Suez Canal was a shortcut to the newly opulent and strategically vital Persian Gulf. With the unification of Europe and the ongoing decolonization of Africa and the Middle East, there was the promise of a new, resource-rich, democratic, and commercially interconnected Mediterranean.

 

Not now. The Arab Spring has brought chaos to almost all of North Africa. The bloodbath in Syria threatens to escalate into something like the Spanish Civil War — sucking in Lebanese militias, Iranian mercenaries, Turkey, the Sunni sheikdoms, Israel, and the Palestinians, along with surrogate arms suppliers like China, Europe, Russia, and the United States.

The economies of the Islamic rim of the Mediterranean are in shambles. But then so is the southern flank of the European Union, as Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain haggle for subsidies and loans from an increasingly fed-up Northern Europe. New gas and oil finds in North America, China, and Africa may soon make both Mediterranean supplies and Suez passage to the Persian Gulf irrelevant for a billion energy consumers.

 

A shrinking and aging Europe keeps drawing in young Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa. They want out of their impoverished Islamic homelands but are being consumed by, rather than enriching, the wealthier European societies that they are drawn to like moths to a flame. The recent rioting in Sweden, the gruesome near-beheading of a soldier in London, and periodic unrest in the French suburbs all remind us that the Mediterranean is not a shared postmodern vacation spot. Instead it is increasingly a stagnant premodern pond of religious, political, and economic tensions.

 

Unrest in the West Bank, Gaza, Cyprus, Syria, Libya, and Egypt could at any moment spark violence that cuts across religious, racial, and political fault lines. Yet otherwise, these tired hotspots are immaterial to a world that from Shanghai, Mumbai, and Seoul to Palo Alto, Houston, London, and Frankfurt is creating vast new wealth, technologies, and consumer goods — without much of a nod to Mediterranean science or innovation.

 

The old strategic fortresses at Cyprus, Crete, Sicily, Malta, and Gibraltar are becoming inconsequential, as the United States pivots to Asia. The Cold War is long over. Europe has all but disarmed. Meanwhile, the societies on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean are coming apart at the seams.

 

It is hard to find a robust free-market economy anywhere in the Mediterranean world these days. Instead, European socialism, Arab statism, and Islamic terrorism in various ways are retarding commerce and growth. Tourism — with visitors gazing at ancient rather than modern wonders — is more profitable than manufacturing.

 

Will the Mediterranean world rebound again? History is cyclical, not linear, and the region’s favorable climate and opportune geography suggest that it could.

 

But, before we see another Mediterranean renaissance, constitutional government would have to sweep the Muslim world. The fossilized bureaucracy of the European Union would have to radically reform or disappear. A new generation of Michelangelos and Leonardos would have to believe that they could think, say, and write whatever they wished — in a climate of economic confidence, prosperity, and security.

 

Unfortunately, the culture of the Mediterranean is reverting to its stagnant 18th-century past rather than leading the 21st century.

Israel Lives the Joseph Story. By Thomas L. Friedman.

Israel Lives the Joseph Story. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times, June 4, 2013.

Friedman:

How would you like to be an Israeli strategist today? Now even Turkey is in turmoil as its people push back on their increasingly autocratic leader. I mean, there goes the neighborhood. The good news for Israel is that in the near term its near neighbors are too internally consumed to think about threatening it. In the long run, though, Israel faces two serious challenges that I’d dub the Stephen Hawking Story and the Joseph Story.

In case you missed it, Hawking, the British physicist, cosmologist and author of “A Brief History of Time,” canceled a planned trip to Israel this month to attend the fifth annual Israeli Presidential Conference. Cambridge University, where Hawking is a professor, said Hawking had told Israelis that he would not be attending “based on advice from Palestinian academics that he should respect the boycott” of Israel because of the West Bank occupation.

“Never has a scientist of this stature boycotted Israel,” Yigal Palmor, of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, declared. I strongly disagree with what Hawking did. Israelis should be challenged not boycotted. (After all, Palestinians are also at fault.) Nevertheless, his action found wide resonance. The Boston Globe said Hawking’s decision was “a reasonable way to express one’s political views. Observers need not agree with Hawking’s position in order to understand and even respect his choice. The movement that Hawking has signed on to aims to place pressure on Israel through peaceful means.”

That was not Al-Ahram. That was The Boston Globe — a reminder that in this age of social networks, populist revolts and superempowered individuals, “international public opinion matters more not less,” notes the Israeli political theorist Yaron Ezrahi, the author of “Imagined Democracies.” And, in Israel’s case, it is creating a powerful surge of international opinion, particularly in Europe and on college campuses, that Israel is a pariah state because of its West Bank occupation. It is not a good trend for Israel. It makes it that much more dependent on America alone for support.

This global trend, though, is coinciding with a complete breakdown in Israel’s regional environment. Israel today is living a version of the Biblical “Joseph Story,” where Joseph endeared himself to the Pharaoh by interpreting his dreams as a warning that seven fat years would be followed by seven lean years and, therefore, Egypt needed to stock up on grain. In Israel’s case, it has enjoyed, relatively speaking, 40 fat years of stable governments around it. Over the last 40 years, a class of Arab leaders took power and managed to combine direct or indirect oil money, with multiple intelligence services, with support from either America or Russia, to ensconce themselves in office for multiple decades. All of these leaders used their iron fists to keep their sectarian conflicts — Sunnis versus Shiites, Christians versus Muslims, and Kurds and Palestinian refugees versus everyone else — in check. They also kept their Islamists underground.

With these iron-fisted leaders being toppled — and true, multisectarian democracies with effective governments yet to emerge in their place — Israel is potentially facing decades of unstable or no governments surrounding it. Only Jordan offers Israel a normal border. In the hinterlands beyond, Israel is looking at dysfunctional states that are either imploding (like Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain and Libya) or exploding (like Syria).

But here’s what’s worse: These iron-fisted leaders not only suppressed various political forces in their societies but also badly ignored their schools, environments, women’s empowerment and population explosions. Today, all these bills are coming due just when their governments are least able to handle them.

Therefore, the overarching theme for Israeli strategy in the coming years must be “resiliency” — how to maintain a relatively secure environment and thriving economy in a collapsing region.

In my view, that makes resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more important than ever for three reasons: 1) to reverse the trend of international delegitimization closing in on Israel; 2) to disconnect Israel as much as possible from the regional conflicts around it; and 3) to offer a model.

There is no successful model of democratic governance in the Arab world at present — the Islamists are all failing. But Israel, if it partnered with the current moderate Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, has a chance to create a modern, economically thriving, democratic, secular state where Christians and Muslims would live side by side — next to Jews. That would be a hugely valuable example, especially at a time when the Arab world lacks anything like it. And the world for the most part would not begrudge Israel keeping its forces on the Jordan River — as will be necessary given the instability beyond — if it ceded most of the West Bank and Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.

Together, Israelis and Palestinians actually have the power to model what a decent, postauthoritarian, multireligious Arab state could look like. Nothing would address both people’s long-term strategic needs better. Too bad their leaders today are not as farsighted as Joseph.


Taking the High Ground. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times, June 13, 2004. Also here.

Friedman 2004:

There is no total victory to be had by Israel over Hezbollah or the Palestinians, without total genocide.


Palestinians and the Hands of Time. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, June 5, 2013.

Ya’alon: No real peace without end to Palestinian incitement. Israel Hayom, June 3, 2013.

The End of Palestinian Reform. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, June 3, 2013.

Palestinians: Why Abbas Chose This Prime Minister. By Khaled Abu Toameh. Gatestone Institute, June 3, 2013.

Palestine’s Nothing Man. By Jonathan Schanzer. Foreign Policy, June 4, 2013.

Radical Islam Arrives in Ramallah. By Khaled Abu Toameh. Gatestone Institute, June 5, 2013.

“Racism” or Extinction. By Dan Calic. Ynet News, June 8, 2013.

The Camel’s Hump Blog.

Palestine, Peoples and Borders in the New Middle East. By Ahmad Samih Khalidi. NJBR, June 3, 2013. With related articles.

Zionism and Israel Are Anti-Semitic. By Joseph Massad. NJBR, June 2, 2013 with related articles.

Palestinians Have Suffered . . . at the Hands of Their Leaders. By Jonathan S. Tobin. NJBR, June 10, 2013. Includes articles and video of Jibril Rajoub claiming Palestine from the river to the sea.

The Libertarian Populist Agenda. By Ben Domenech.

The Libertarian Populist Agenda. By Ben Domenech. Real Clear Politics, June 5, 2013.

Three Challenges to Libertarian Populism. By Ben Domenech. Real Clear Politics, June 6, 2013.

Libertarian Populism and Its Limits. By Ross Douthat. New York Times, June 4, 2013.

What “Conservative Reformers” Can Learn From Libertarians. By Peter Suderman. Reason, May 31, 2013.

Conservative reformers should fix the rigged game. By Tim Carney. Washington Examiner, June 4, 2013.

Reformish Conservatives. By Ryan Cooper. Washington Monthly, May/June 2013. Also here.

What Is Reform Conservatism? By Ross Douthat. NJBR, June 2, 2013.

On Conservative Reformers. By Erick Erickson. RedState, June 4, 2013.

U.S. Meritocracy Has Given Way to Aristocracy. By Erick Erickson. NJBR, May 30, 2013. With articles by Ben Domenech and others.


Erickson (Conservative Reformers):

In fact, I dare say this is a problem both parties have these days — the up and coming intellectual voices are voices that have worked little outside think tanks and ideological publications. The saving grace for the conservatives on this front is that they, by virtue of being conservative, at least have an understanding into how human nature actually operates.

Conservatism wins when it is populist and middle class. It does not win when it is academic or technocratic. Those discussing conservative reform in Washington and New York are offering up some intriguing ideas worth considering. And I hate it for them that they, real conservative policy thinkers, have to overcome both the poseurs and the anti-beltway bias, but I would also urge them to consider that the public deeply, deeply distrusts Washington. It is therefore probably not a great sales pitch to figure out how conservatives in Washington can make the case for Washington improving the lives of people who feel Washington and those, regardless of party or ideology, in Washington have helped create an American aristocracy.

Ronald Reagan took the academic ideas of conservatism and tied them to a mid-western understanding of human nature and a life spent touring factories and talking to people within 100 miles of a major American river valley, not just 25 miles of a coast. Conservative reform is going to come from the 50 laboratories of democracy and will be tied to a face and voice that ground them in the real world of Main Street, USA.