A drought in Israel in 1985 caused the water level in the Sea of Galilee to fall lower than usual. On January 24, 1986, the remains of an ancient boat were discovered. Archaeologists carefully extracted the remains and preserved them in a museum at Nof Ginosar, near Tiberias. A cooking pot and a lamp were also found with the boat.

The boat is just over 27 feet long by 8 feet wide. Radio carbon dating has put its age at 2000 years, which means that it was sailing on the Sea of Galilee at about the time of the Julius Caesar assassination.

This model from the museum at Nof Ginosar shows what the boat would have looked like in its heyday.

It’s summertime and anyone who stays by his desk typing urgently while the gorgeous Kineret is just sitting there, blue and warm and sweet and quiet, is plain nuts.

Everybody else seems to be having the time of their lives.

If you’re on your laptop or iPad at this moment, worshipping the big fireball in the heavens – think about us, the little people who write this stuff.

Happy fourth of July, in case you’re connected in any way to that day in Philadelphia back in 1776.

A monumental synagogue building dating to the Late Roman period (ca. 4th-5th centuries C.E.) has been uncovered in archaeological excavations at the ancient Jewish village of Huqoq in Israel’s Galilee.

Revealed in the excavations are a stunning mosaic floor decorating the interior of the building.  Made of small, high-quality colored stone cubes, the mosaic depicts a scene of the biblical judge/warrior Samson tying fiery torches between the tails of foxes, as described in the book of Judges 15.  In another section of the mosaic, two female faces border a circular medallion, with a Hebrew inscription praising those who perform Torah commandments.

 The excavations are being conducted by Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and David Amit and Shua Kisilevitz of the Israel Antiquities Authority, and sponsored by UNC, Brigham Young University in Utah, Trinity University in Texas, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Toronto in Canada. Students and staff from UNC and the consortium schools are also participating in the dig.

“This discovery is significant because only a small number of ancient (Late Roman) synagogue buildings are decorated with mosaics showing biblical scenes, and only two others have scenes with Samson (one is at another site just a couple of miles from Huqoq),” said Magness, the Kenan Distinguished Professor in the department of religious studies in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences in a press release issued by the Israel Antiquities Authority. “Our mosaics are also important because of their high artistic quality and the tiny size of the mosaic cubes. This, together with the monumental size of the stones used to construct the synagogue’s walls, suggest a high level of prosperity in this village, as the building clearly was very costly.”

Huqoq is located just  west of Capernaum and Migdal.  It was discovered in 2011 by Magness.

The Kinneret, Israel’s Sea of Galilee, has long been a steady source of concern for locals, with the need for water for drinking and agriculture scoring the highest points for anxiety, followed closely by tourism.

The lowest level was reached in 2001, at 214.87 meters (704.95 feet) below sea level. At that point the ecological damage to the beautiful lake was considered critical, as the water receded to as much as a thousand feet from where the beaches used to be.

Happily, the current rainy winter has elevated the Kinneret’s water level by 2.21 meters (7.25 feet), compared with that driest of seasons, 11 years ago. Altogether, this rainy season has contributed 1.4 meters (4.59 feet) to the water level, putting it at 212.66 meters (697.70 feet) below sea level.

This weekend alone brought up the lake’s level by 19 cm, or a little over half a foot.

The Kinneret needs to rise 3.86 meters (12.66 feet) to reach its optimal water level, which experts suggest could possibly happen after the end of the rainy season. They point out that record snow on the mountains north of the lake will result in record thawing come spring.

As residents of northern Israel were turning in for the night, a 3.8 magnitude earthquake originating at the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret) jolted them awake on Sunday.

The Geophysical Institute of Israel reported that the short and mild earthquake, which was felt by residents of Metula, Tiberius, Acco, Nahariya and Kiryat Shmona, began around the area of the Sea of Galilee and Hula valley.  No damage or injuries have been reported.

This is not the first time the North has been affected by earthquakes – or even the first time this year.  Mild earthquakes also hit the country in August and April, causing no damage or injuries.  However, major earthquakes taking place in northern Israel in 1759 and 1837 were catastrophic, killing thousands of people and twice razing the city of Tzfat.

In July, chairman of the National Economic Council Professor Eugene Kendal told Israel Army Radio that Israel is not financially prepared for the next large earthquake.

In March, a report by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss predicted that a 7.5 “worst-case scenario” earthquake in northern Israel could “cause 16,000 deaths, 6,000 seriously injured, 83,000 lightly injured, 377,000 evacuated from their homes,” breaks in sewage pipes and the National Water Carrier, electric outages, and the partial collapse of two overpasses near Haifa.

The standard critique of Israel’s settlement movement from the Zionist left has been to point out that attempting to assert sovereignty over the West Bank could lead to an Arab majority. The argument is that this would enable the Palestinians to succeed in wiping out the Jewish state using demography rather than invasion or terror. It’s a point of view many Israelis share, but the Palestinian refusal to make peace has continued to frustrate the wishes of most Jews for a two-state solution.

But the dislike of the settlers goes a lot deeper than mere demographic arguments. As Gershom Gorenberg’s piece in The New York Times’s Sunday Review section this week illustrates, the passion to buttress the Jewish presence in any part of the country, whether on the wrong side of the Green Line or not, is what is really bugging the left.

Gorenberg, a veteran Israeli journalist whose animus for the settlers and Israel’s government have made him a regular presence in liberal American publications, takes his familiar attacks on the right to new levels in a piece in which he claims efforts to ensure a Jewish majority in the Israeli city of Acre as well as the Galilee are no more defensible than the settlers’ attempts to establish Israeli beachheads in the West Bank.

For Gorenberg, the push to ensure that parts of pre-June 1967 Israel will not be lost to the Arabs is also “racist.” Indeed, he worries that even if a two-state solution forces some of the Jews currently living in the West Bank to relocate inside the Green Line, they will take their Zionist fervor with them – leading to conflicts that will replicate the “price tag” attacks on Arabs that leftists see as the inevitable product of settler ideology.

This distorted argument not only turns liberal Israeli arguments upside down, it also betrays the mixed feelings some on the left seem to have for Zionism.

As with many accounts of events on the West Bank that treat the rare outbreaks of Jewish violence against Arabs as the only story worth reporting, Gorenberg’s attempt to paint all settlers with the brush of the “price tag” crimes is both factually incorrect as well as unfair.

Anti-Jewish violence in the West Bank is a daily occurrence that liberal journalists either choose to ignore or rationalize as justified, because they see the presence of Israelis in the territories as inherently illegitimate. The same mindset has led the press to treat a regrettable case of arson against a mosque inside Israel as a harbinger of pogroms against Arab citizens.

As with the West Bank, far more numerous incidents – especially in the Galilee – in which Israeli Arabs have targeted Jews are treated as either unimportant or just ignored.

Rather than the malevolent attitudes of West Bank settlers infecting ordinary Israelis, as Gorenberg fears, what has actually happened in the last 18 years since the Oslo Accords empowered Fatah terrorists in the territories is that Israeli Arabs have become radicalized. The political culture of the people who now dub themselves Palestinians with Israeli citizenship has become a reflection of the hatred and rejectionism that characterizes the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

Gorenberg’s disgust for attempts to reinforce Jewish numbers in the Galilee also contradicts a basic tenant of the Israeli left. For decades, even those who agreed Jews ought to have the right to live in the West Bank because it is the heart of the historic Jewish homeland argued that it made more sense to put more Jewish resources into the battle to maintain a Jewish majority in the Galilee and the Negev.

If such efforts are now to be treated as being as illegitimate as the campaign to restore Jewish life to Judea and Samaria, it is difficult to see how Gorenberg imagines Israel can retain a Jewish majority.

This reflects the cognitive dissonance on the left. Though writers like Gorenberg claim to support the idea of a democratic Israel with a Jewish majority, the anti-Zionist logic that brands the Jewish presence in the West Bank as racist colonialism can just as easily be applied to any spot inside the Green Line.

Israel’s enemies view Tel Aviv as being as much an illegal settlement as the most remote hilltop encampment of right-wing Jewish extremists. The fact that Gorenberg views Jewish community-building in Acre and the Galilee with the same disgust as West Bank settlements illustrates all too clearly just how out of touch he is with both reality and the views of Israel’s moderate Zionist majority.

Jonathan S. Tobin is senior online editor of Commentary magazine with responsibility for managing the editorial content of its Contentions website – where this originally appeared –  as well as serving as chief politics blogger.

The IDF fired at Lebanese targets just after midnight on Tuesday after the firing of three rockets into northern Israel.

Three rockets fired from Lebanon were located in Israeli communities near the Lebanese border in the Western Galilee.  No injuries were reported.  Police are searching for a possible fourth rocket.  The rockets are believed to have been Katyushas.

Katyusha Lands in Israel, Oct. 2009. Hamad Almakt/Flash90

Two of the rockets landed in Netua, a small Moshav of 250 people.  A chicken coop and propane gas tank were damaged.

Another rocket has been confirmed in Biranit, with no damage reported.

Police conducted searches for a fourth rocket in the woods  near Kfar Vradim, a town of approximately 6,000 people 14 kilometers from the border with Lebanon, where residents reported hearing an explosion.

The IDF Northern Command has gone on full alert.

IDF spokespersons said the IDF considers the incident severe, and holds the Lebanese government responsible for not preventing the attacks.  The IDF said in a statement that it views the rocket attacks as a severe incident and it holds the Lebanese government and the Lebanese military responsible for preventing such actions.  Israel will file a complaint with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which was charged by the UN under Resolution 1701 with monitoring the border in order to prevent hostilities between Israel and Lebanon.  Under the resolution, UN troops which stood at 2,000 prior to the 2006 war were increased to a maximum of 15,000.

Army Radio reported this as the eight rocket attack on the North since Israel’s war with Hizbullah in 2006.  IDF officials believe the attacks were all conducted by Al-Qaida or Palestinian terror groups.

 Non-Jews are no strangers to Israel’s policy of inclusivity in its government. What is strange is finding a non-Jewish Knesset member who is more Zionistic than most of his fellow parliamentarians. Ayoub Kara, a Druze Likud Knesset minister, is proud to consider himself one of the most “right wing” members of the Knesset.

Kara, who was appointed deputy minister of the development of the Negev and Galilee by Prime Minister Netanyahu, was first elected to the Knesset in 1999. He was appointed Speaker of the Knesset, served as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Workers and later as chairman of the Anti-Drug Committee.

In a unique position to reach out to others, Kara spoke with the mufti of Turkey following the flotilla crisis in an effort to mend bridges. He defended Israel as “the most humanitarian country in the Middle East” and urged the mufti to preach brotherhood “because there are no winners in war, and the way of peace and dialogue is preferable to the miseries of war.”

Kara lives in the Druze town of Daliyat al-Karmel near Haifa with his wife and five children

Kara: The Druze descend from Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses. Both Jethro and Moses are prophets of the Druze, and we share the same book of religion as the Jews. The Druze believe, through the prophet Jethro, that the land of Israel is for the Jews and should be defended for the Jews.

Around a hundred years ago, when the Jews wanted to make a state of their own, the Druze helped them. They defended Jewish kibbutzim and gave the Jews in the North guns. They even cooperated with the Druze in Syria to support the Jews. There are around two million Druze in Israel living in the North, in the Galilee, the Carmel, the Golan Heights, and we serve in the Israeli army. Unlike the Palestinians, we have no aspirations for our own state.

This is the philosophy of most Druze, but they’re scared to speak out about it. The Druze are afraid of the Muslims. Privately they say they share a historical religion with the Jews, but out loud most of the Druze don’t speak like that. There is no democracy and free speech in Arab countries and many of the Druze are pressured to convert to Islam. In Israel it’s different because we have freedom to say we’re Druze, and we even have a Druze flag next to the Israeli flag. We can’t do this in Arab countries. I was in Lebanon and Syria, and I know how the Druze there feel. They feel like outsiders and are scared of the Muslims.

To what extent has your family been involved in Israel’s struggle for survival?

Before 1948 my grandfather helped the Jews and paid a big price. His son, my uncle, was the first Druze to be killed by the Arabs in 1939. He was an officer on the side of Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel, and he was killed by Arabs in Acco [Acre] because they said that he supported the Jews. My father fought with Tzahal in 1948 in the Galilee. Another uncle of mine was killed by Arabs at that time. And my two brothers were killed in the Lebanon War in 1982 near Beirut.

I was also severely injured in the Lebanon War, and my parents died soon after from heartbreak. I returned to my village near Haifa and started my own family after that. I need peace. I don’t like war, but I speak about my tragedy because it’s important to hear how my family paid such a price to defend Israel. I believe the ultimate importance for me, more than anything, is that I live in a democratic state with human rights. In all the surrounding Arab countries there are no human rights, no courts, no justice.

You serve as deputy minister of the Galilee and Negev. What do you consider the most significant challenges you face in these areas?

The big problem in the Galilee and Negev is the migration of people from these areas to the center of Israel. They move there to study and work because we don’t have companies and business in the north and south to provide work for the young people. And when they move to the center, that means the Arabs gain in these areas. President Peres keeps talking about demographics as the reason to give the Palestinians another state. In the future a new Peres could come and say we have to give the Arabs in the north and south another state. I am afraid of that because there will be more Arabs than Jews.

What efforts are you making to combat this problem?

I am trying to introduce new initiatives in the government. One is in the area of education. We now offer soldiers who finish the army the opportunity to study for free in the Galilee and Negev, and we’re also building a big college for medicine in the Galilee. We are trying to build new big roads for people to commute more quickly from the center [of Israel]. We support companies who come to these areas and provide incentives for them. We allowed Intel to open a big factory in the Negev with many rights from the government. This is our opportunity to change the demographics. If we don’t pursue this we will find ourselves with more Arabs than Jews in these areas. In 1948 there were 20,000 Beduin in the Negev. Now, with no immigration, there are 200,000 Beduin.

You spoke out very strongly against the Gaza Disengagement. Do you think the Israeli public has learned anything from the results of that withdrawal?

I think the Jewish people are very na?ve. I was against the withdrawal from Lebanon and was alone in my opposition. I said that Hizbullah will be motivated from this. In 1982 most of the public in Lebanon were more liberal – Christian, Druze and secular Muslims – and we were mostly at peace with them. I told [then-prime minister Ehud] Barak that it was important for us to support this group. But we withdrew quickly, and Hizbullah gained power in this area as a result of the withdrawal.

The same thing happened when Sharon withdrew from Gaza. I led the opposition to this plan in the government, but when I spoke out I was accused of opposing peace and supporting war. I tried to stop the Disengagement through the finance committee in the Knesset, but I was told if I don’t agree with them they will throw me out of the parliament. Now it’s different. More than 90 percent now understand that what happened in Gush Katif and South Lebanon was a mistake. They know that if there are any withdrawals in Yehudah and Shomron, the same thing would happen and there would be an Iranian ascendancy in those areas.

But we have the Supreme Court and other liberals in Israel who think we are negotiating with people who have the same mentality as Jews, Europeans or Americans. But in the Middle East, the Arabs tell you what you want to hear and not what you have to hear. The Jews did not understand this until now.

I don’t want Israel to make another mistake. This is my state. For me the religion is not important – Druze, Jewish, or Christian. I am an Israeli patriot.

Yet you serve as a deputy minister in a Likud coalition whose prime minister endorsed the two-state solution and is pressing for direct talks with the Palestinians. Do you see this as a contradiction?

I support Netanyahu and am one of his close friends. I don’t think Netanyahu would give up any land, but he’s realistic and knows he would look bad to the world if he opposes Obama. Obama has an agenda to give a state to the Palestinians. But he doesn’t live here. We do. When they pushed us on Gush Katif we gave them land, and when we were attacked afterward I didn’t see the U.S. come to defend us.

It’s very popular to say two states for two people, but when you speak about this you have to have a partner and leadership to give them a state. Who would lead this state? Abbas and Fayyad cannot cross the border of Hebron. If there would be an election in the West Bank, Hamas would of course win. And Abbas and Fayyad don’t lead in Gaza. They are not relevant there. If they would cross the border into Gaza Hamas would kill them. That’s why I laugh when they talk about two states.

In all history there was never a Palestinian state. I don’t support the two-state solution. We have to look at the Palestinians’ intentions. Most of the Palestinians don’t believe Israel should exist. The state of the Palestinians is Jordan. More than 90 percent of Jordan is Palestinian. If they want us to go back to the 1967 borders, then Jordan should lead the Palestinian cities in Judea and Samaria civilly, not in defense, while Israel should [maintain its presence] in the big cities and all the areas in between. And Egypt should retake control of Gaza. We should end any relationship with Gaza. We don’t have any other solution for Gaza. De facto we have another state there.

But what if Egypt doesn’t want a relationship with Gaza?

So what? We are being pushed to give another state and we don’t want that either. If they want us to move to the 1967 borders then they have too also. Egypt has problems with the Muslim Brotherhood, but we have our problems too. If the Egyptians kill a few thousand people in Gaza in broad daylight no one would say anything, but if Israel kills one Palestinian it makes news around the world. If we do not give Gaza to Egypt there’s no other solution. The same thing with Jordan and the West Bank.

We need real peace in the Middle East, but I am not going to agree with Obama’s plan. No Obama and no Osama can push us to enable Iran to come into Jerusalem.