These cities and towns strategically lay on an east-west line, running from the Jordan to the Mediterranean coast, and overlooking the fertile Jezreel Valley. Whoever held these towns could effectively cut northern Israel in two and maintain a stranglehold on agricultural and trading activity over a wide area. They were too important to leave unchallenged…. As border towns four of them posed a direct threat to Manasseh itself, as well as to its northern neighbors.¹