Having consulted with some of the foremost experts on the subject, Amanda Borschel-Dan details some of the most important archaeological discoveries in the land of Israel. The experts named the tomb of Herod, cutting-edge research using biology and genetics, and, of course, the Dead Sea Scrolls as some of the most significant finds of the past 70 years. Amidst these discoveries, controversies surrounding the correct approach to the Bible have not abated:

“A major debate in the last 40 years is the historicity of the Hebrew Bible,” Yosef Garfinkel, head of the Institute of Archaeology at Hebrew University [said]. In recent decades, there have been several discoveries that could be interpreted as shoring up biblical narratives, several of which were found in Jerusalem’s ancient Old City. The most recent among them was a clay seal impression bearing what could be the name of the prophet Isaiah, discovered by Eilat Mazar in her recently renewed Jerusalem excavations. . . .

Garfinkel [names] several other examples of archaeological evidence in support of the biblical narrative. . . . “A few finds indicate that the Bible indeed bears historical memories,” said Garfinkel, who is directing archaeological expeditions to Khirbet Qeiyafa, Tel Lachish, and Khirbet er-Rai.

Garfinkel said excavations of the fortified city of Khirbet Qeiyafa “indicates urban society in Judah at the time of King David.” A portable shrine found at Khirbet Qeiyafa “indicates royal architecture in Judah at the time of David and Solomon.” According to Garfinkel, “the biblical text described [similar] architecture that was used at that era.” . . .

But foremost among the findings that both Aren Maeir [of Bar-Ilan University] and Garfinkel highlight is the Tel Dan stele discovered in secondary use in 1993 bearing an inscription on a 9th-century-BCE stone slab that mentions “House of David.” The stone and its fragmentary inscription is called by some the “first historical evidence of King David.” . . . While not naming the fabled king specifically, . . . it does recount the victory of an Aramean king over his two southern neighbors: the “king of Israel” and the “king of the House of David.”

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.