It was my browser that wouldn't load the page correctly. I switched to a different one. (Lousy 21st century web technology.)
Took a look at the article. A lot of the usual overlap without specifics in the first half (Semites, Hyksos, mud brick slaves, Egyptian conquest of Canaan, etc.) then about halfway in a direct reference:
"The papyrus Anastasi VI from around 3200 years ago describes how the Egyptian authorities allowed a group of Semitic nomads from Edom who worshiped Yahweh to pass the border-fortress in the region of Tjeku (Wadi Tumilat) and proceed with their livestock to the lakes of Pithom."
A search for that papyrus found a scholarly article from the 50s with a competing view at the top of the search. No mention of Yahweh (that I saw), just nomads from "red lands" or perhaps desert.
The Hareetz article follows immediately with:
"Shortly afterwards, the Israelites enter world history with the Merenptah stele, which bears the first mention of an entity called Israel in Canaan. It is robustly dated at is 1210 BCE, i.e., as of writing, 3226 years ago."
Working that connection hard (despite not actually mentioning Canaan, or Israel in the papyrus, depending on interpretation)
There are some similarities to generic descriptions in Exodus and of life in ancient Egypt and the one concrete example tying the two together and that example is readily questioned by specialists. (Not universally rejected, mind you.)
I also have no idea what the ideologies involved in the writing or publishing of the article are. The author is supposed to be an underwater archeologist, but I am having a hard time finding articles by him.
At first while initially reading, I supposed the writer would be simply the science section writer (and
Haaretz is leading newspaper, sorta like NYTimes or such) -- but I see along with the list of articles (many interesting things about archeology), that's actually his training/field:
Philippe Bohstrom - Breaking News, Features and Analyses From Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World Haaretz
"Philippe Bohstrom is an archaeologist, covering archaeology for news outlets and journals in America, Europe and Asia. Bohstrom holds a master's degree in Classical Archaeology from Gothenburg University and a master´s degree in Near Eastern Archaeology and History from Tel Aviv University."
Regarding whether any Israelites were ever slaves in Egypt, while it seems very plausible it's not clearly proven that I so far found (or that's been found in well known archeology so far, to be more exact, (we don't imagine all archeology is over, but that new things will be found in future times of course).
Talking more generally about Egypt, it was a kingdom, of course, and slavery was very commonplace at that time (and has been in the world in general until more recent times).
E.g.: It does seem pretty clear Egypt used a lot of slave labor (or the equivalent):
Did children build the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna?
New evidence from Akhenaten’s capital suggests that a ‘disposable’ workforce of children and teenagers provided much of the labour for the city’s construction
New evidence from Akhenaten’s capital suggests that a ‘disposable’ workforce of children and teenagers provided much of the labour for the city’s construction
I noticed that they could only speculate where these young people came from, but the disposal suggests they are non native in that native children would more likely (I think) to be
buried with tokens, symbols, ritual burials or such as a way to help the Egyptian population feel better about their kids dying, etc. -- in a way consistent with how native children are buried in all other nations, everywhere on Earth pretty much...
So, those are very likely foreign slaves., etc.
But I didn't yet see evidence that simply makes everything clear about Israel's path, and well, really, it would
surprise me if much of that was found past just a very partial amount of things that are a scant record.
Consider a group that was enslaved, and then later is a marginal group that was on the move trying to find a home, etc...
We'd expect evidence to be scarce until after they finally settled.... Here's why:
It's that disposable slaves don't get a lot of honor/detailed genealogy, etc. -- so, logically, it would not be in keeping to find extensive proof of who the slaves were unless detailed records of where the slaves came from were kept.
So,
before the time that Israel was a settled people in Canaan, settled finally in one place, was finally beginning to leave the easy to find records of extensive and lasting settlement life of a large population in one spot, the kind of evidence that easily lasts for millennia....
why expect to see evidence about them?...
In other words, it would not make archeological sense to expect much evidence of Israel before its an well established permanent nation/set of cities.
Unless you can figure out why we should find evidence of a marginal group on the move trying to settle? I can't see why anyone would expect evidence of that to last 3,000+ years, but rather old remains in the desert would be hard to attribute to a specific group, but just be 'Semitic' or such, only a remains from that vague, large diverse grouping of the peoples of the larger region (now very many diverse nations).
(at this point, we've digressed enough from chatGPT! lol....if we continue further on this, it ought to be thread on this topic instead)