The Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities reported that a number of important archaeological sites in the Gaza Strip were damaged after Israeli shelling (Reuters)
A few days ago, the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (1), through its official accounts on social media, condemned the vandalism of the World Heritage Site "South Jerusalem Terraces" by a group of settlers under the protection of the Israeli occupation army, after they placed mobile homes (caravans) and began carrying out bulldozing works for the purpose of building a new settlement outpost. The ministry pointed out that this sabotage comes within the framework of "the war of extermination carried out by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people, and its attempts to impose policies of Judaization and the acquisition, falsification and destruction of Palestinian heritage, in order to justify its settlement policies."
It is worth mentioning that the World Heritage Committee (2) inscribed the site of "Battir" (amphitheaters south of Jerusalem) on the UNESCO World Heritage List during the meeting held in the Qatari capital Doha in June 2014. The cultural landscape of the terraces is located 7 kilometers southwest of Jerusalem, and extends through a series of valleys starting from Wadi Makhrour west of Beit Jala towards the village of Husan. The World Heritage Committee points out that the development of these agricultural terraces depended on a network of irrigation channels fed by groundwater sources, due to the nature of the surrounding mountain environment.
Earlier, the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities reported that a group of important archaeological sites in the Gaza Strip were damaged after the Israeli bombardment, foremost of which were: the Church of "Perphyrios" in the Zaytoun neighborhood, which is the oldest church in Gaza and dates back to the fifth century AD during the Byzantine era, as well as the "Omari Mosque" in the city of "Jabalya", which is the oldest among the mosques in Gaza, in addition to the Roman cemetery in "Jabalia", and the minaret of the "Shujaiya" mosque. , and the ancient mosque "Qashgar", which dates back to the 13th century AD.
Silencing Palestinian History
"The irony is that it was the wounded Gaza that healed the human wound by inventing medical gauze, whose English name "Gauze" came from the name of Canaanite Gaza in the 13th century BC, when it was a center for weaving silk."
Dr. Hamdan Taha, Researcher in Palestinian Archaeology and Heritage
The successive publications issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities shed light on the systematic destruction practiced by the Israeli occupation against Palestinian heritage, which is explained by British religious studies professor Keith Whitlam in his book "The Fabrication of Ancient Israel... Silencing Palestinian history" (3), pointing out that archaeological information indicates the physical remains of man, and because the Palestinian people have been present on the land of Palestine since ancient times, archaeological excavations must reveal this, but the Zionist authorities dominating the archaeological discovery at the present time are working to obliterate the features of the Arab-Canaanite civilization that inhabited these lands.
Whitlam draws attention to one of the important clauses in the British Mandate (Article 21), which states that (4): "The state must ensure the development and implementation of a law on ancient antiquities" according to certain rules, and the Mandate lists 8 detailed rules governing excavations and archaeological excavations, including the prohibition of excavation of ancient antiquities except with a permit from the competent department, and limiting the granting of permits to conduct excavations to those who prove their experience in this field, which was most of its experts in that The time of Westerners, most of whom have adopted the Zionist outlook.
The excavation of the floor of the mosque "Amqa" in the district of Acre, by the Israeli antiquities gangs (Al-Jazeera)
Whitlam draws attention to one of the important clauses in the British Mandate (Article 21), which states that (4): "The state must ensure the development and implementation of a law on ancient antiquities" according to certain rules, and the Mandate lists 8 detailed rules governing excavations and archaeological excavations, including the prohibition of excavation of ancient antiquities except with a permit from the competent department, and limiting the granting of permits to conduct excavations to those who prove their experience in this field, which was most of its experts in that The time of Westerners, most of whom have adopted the Zionist outlook.
Whitlam confirms that Zionism wanted to provide the appropriate climate for work in the field of archaeological excavation, in order to find evidence that puts the entire Palestinian history in the grip of Zionist studies, which is in line with the insistence of the Zionist leader "Chaim Weizmann" that the Balfour Declaration include a reference to the historical link between the Jews scattered throughout the land and the "land of their fathers" as they called it, while Whitlam denies that saying, stressing that the ancient history of Israel is just a short moment within the long Palestinian history, which is what The Palestinian thinker Edward Said puts it in his book "Victim Blame: Pseudoscientific Research and the Question of Palestine": "Palestine was the home of a remarkable civilization for centuries before the Hebrew tribes migrated to it."
Historian and researcher in Palestinian heritage Dr. Hamdan Taha (5) agrees with Whitlam's views, and points out that the Israeli narrative is a model for employing antiquities in the service of specific ideological goals within the Zionist settlement project, and that the strength of the Zionist narrative does not stem from scientific and objective evidence as much as it is related to international and political alliances.
Taha adds that Palestine has witnessed the largest looting of antiquities since the British occupation, and at the present time there are thousands of artifacts discovered in Palestine on the shelves of international museums around the world, in addition to the systematic looting of antiquities by Israel through its institutions or through individuals, and Israel's attention is focused - according to Taha - on sites of ideological importance that consolidate Zionist claims or that constitute an important resource for tourism development, such as "Tell Al-Fardis", which was a fortress Romania, and Mount Gerizim in Nablus. At the same time, Palestinian monuments that contradict this narrative are systematically destroyed (as is the case with ancient churches and mosques in Gaza) or left to be deliberately neglected (Israel prohibits Palestinians from repairing these structures).
The occupation destroys the antiquities of Palestine. Effects of destruction on Al-Basha Palace and Al-Omari Mosque in Gaza City following the continuous Israeli bombardment of pic.twitter.com/S5NIsXgD3I
— Al Jazeera Egypt (@AJA_Egypt) December 31, 2023
Rockefeller Museum
"They dominated history to inhabit the reality they seized in the lap of that history."
Syrian writer Mamdouh Adwan, book "Judaization of knowledge"
Israel's robbery of Palestinian history goes beyond stealing a collection of artifacts to seizing entire sites, including a museum with all its holdings, the Palestinian Antiquities Museum, which is the first museum established in Palestine and is currently known as "Rockefeller" (6). Construction of the museum began in 1928, and took nearly 10 years to build, since excavations revealed the existence of Islamic graves, which necessitated excavations, and then opened in June 1938. At the time, the museum contained many important artifacts, such as the ruins of Khirbet al-Mafjar (the palace of Hisham bin Abd al-Malik) and the Qumran Scrolls (discovered at the Dead Sea in 1947 and considered by the Israel Antiquities Authority to be one of the most important assets of the state).
By 1948, with the end of the British Mandate for Jerusalem, the Mandate government formed the museum's board of trustees to keep it under its control until it was nationalized by the Jordanian government in 1966, but a few months after nationalization, the Israelis seized the museum during the June 1967 war, and its name was changed to the "Rockefeller" Museum after the American "Rockefeller" family, who donated the costs of its construction. The museum is currently run by the Israel Antiquities Authority, which considers it part of the National Museum of Israel built in West Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Antiquities Museum, the first museum established in Palestine, is now known as Rockefeller (Shutterstock)
Although the museum's holdings varied between Greek, Christian and Islamic antiquities and pharaonic writings documenting an Egyptian campaign in the 13th century BC on the Beit She'an region, the Israeli touch intervenes in a crude and "parasitic" way to prove the coincidence of these civilizations with the Jewish presence in those lands (7). For example, there are inscriptions engraved in Hebrew throughout the museum's corridors and corridors, and the museum's guide indicates that the British artist Eric Gill who designed these letters was inspired by ancient Hebrew letters discovered in "Ancient Ruins in Countries." Similarly, the tour guide unnecessarily associates the time of the Egyptian campaign with the presence of the Prophet Joshua ben Nun (who, according to the biblical narrative, brought the Israelites out of the wandering).
Israeli bravado reaches its peak when looking at the holdings of the National Museum in Jerusalem, which contains an archaeological diversity that represents a unique history of successive civilizations in Palestine, such as the anthropoid sarcophagi discovered mainly south of Gaza in the city of Deir al-Balah (8), amounting to about 50 handmade pottery coffins using the scroll technique, and these coffins date back to the late Bronze Age and the beginning of the first Iron Age (about the 14th century BC).
At the same time, the museum insists on placing archaeological objects compatible with biblical narratives at the forefront of the scene, while discoveries related to the period of Arab civilization are hidden or almost non-existent, including the celebration of the statue of the Roman emperor "Hadrian" discovered in the Palestinian town of "Beit She'an". Although the statue is in fact a rare piece because it is made of bronze and is distinguished by its standard resemblance to the emperor, it seems that the main purpose of highlighting this statue alone, according to the Jewish narrative, lies in the emperor's suppression of the Jewish rebellion during the "Bar Kochba" revolt in the second century AD. Thus, the Israeli occupation policy continues to employ Palestinian heritage in the service of its narrative, either acquiring this heritage and falsifying it in line with its settlement policies, or resorting to destroying and obliterating it completely when the forgery process is difficult.
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Source : Al Jazeera