Every story about Israeli archaeology buries the lede, if you’ll excuse the pun.
The latest is an ongoing debate over how to protect ancient historical artifacts from Palestinian marauders in Judea and Samaria. One proposal would grant the Israel Antiquities Authority, a civil administration agency, oversight with regard to archaeological digs beyond the “green line,” the temporary 1949 armistice line treated as a de facto border. At present, the IAA only has authority over sites inside Israel proper, and the military oversees the rest.
A Times of Israel story about it, after going through the requisite motions of he-said-she-said finger-pointing, extracts from this contested earth the following:
“A separate survey by a group of Palestinian archaeologists in 2024 found evidence of looting at 309 of 440 West Bank sites, according to Salah Al-Houdalieh, an archaeology professor at al-Quds University.”
That’s the most important fact to know about the controversy: The Palestinians admit that Palestinians are regularly looting and destroying artifacts at most of the archaeological sites in the West Bank.
What’s the explanation for the ISIS-like obsession with destroying evidence of history? Well, the real reason is because the modern Arab-Palestinian fable of Jewish colonialism doesn’t withstand the inspection of a single grain of sand. But the Palestinians have their own ready explanation for why they are destroying the historical record of the ancient Jewish land on which they live. Here is the aforementioned Palestinian archaeologist al-Houdalieh, writing in January:
“Looting has always been an issue, but the recent escalation of hostilities by Israel against Palestinians has led to an increase in antiquities looting, as tens of thousands of unemployed people struggle to meet their most basic needs.”
The Palestinians, the academic claims, have been forced to become tomb raiders because the areas under Palestinian governance have no jobs.
This deflection is risible, but we should instead focus on the fact that there is no disagreement on whether Arab Palestinians are actively destroying the history of the world. They do not deny it.
While this is going on, of course, the French and British and Canadians and Australians are recognizing a “state of Palestine” on that very land. (Well, presumably on that land; the magical state of Palestine has yet to be assigned borders by its recognizers.) The facts, of course, argue for a different approach: Palestinian sovereignty should be earned, and it certainly cannot be granted before the artifacts under their feet can be protected from those who are carrying out a modern version of the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria.
What kind of destruction are we talking about? Here’s just one example of the hundreds and hundreds, from an Israeli expert:
“The burial grounds of Hasmonean kings—the largest necropolis in the Middle East from the Second Temple period—have been plowed and used for farming and construction. In one case, we found human bones scattered in the fields. The Israeli Civil Administration had to collect and rebury them.”
Still, Israeli archaeologists oppose the proposal to expand the IAA’s reach to the West Bank. That’s because a civil agency would have far less legal freedom to operate than the military does, since the land is under military stewardship. Therefore, Israelis worry, it would be easier for Palestinians to delay or block access to the sites.
There are two other reasons that Israeli archaeologists oppose the bill. One is that they fear the existing academic boycotts would expand in retaliation. The second is that some people argue that Israel is attempting a sort of back-door sovereignty expansion by allowing civil agencies to manage affairs over the green line. This one’s less convincing, because there is a genuine crisis here that the bill is aimed at addressing, and therefore one cannot claim that the intervention is unnecessary. Something must be done.
One proffered alternative would be for the military’s own archaeological authority to increase its budget and beef up its staff so that experts can do the same work under military supervision. That seems like a perfectly reasonable solution.
What is not reasonable, however, is the status quo. That the UN doesn’t care about preserving world history is unsurprising. That France and Britain don’t care is shameful. But Israel cares, and thankfully that is the one that matters.
