Battle for biblical archaeology intensifies as Israeli researchers face academic boycott

TEL AVIV - A starring archaeology journal has efficaciously barred submissions by Israelis connected Judea and Samaria unless they "have cooperated with the applicable Palestinian authorities," successful what analysts accidental is simply a microcosm of the harm caused by a planetary run to whitewash the Jewish people’s past successful the Land of Israel.

According to a study precocious published by The Press Service of Israel (TPS-IL), the Palestine Exploration Quarterly (PEQ)—a peer-reviewed diary of the London-based Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF)—is refusing to judge submissions from researchers affiliated with institutions operating successful what it refers to arsenic "occupied territory," citing concerns implicit alleged Israeli violations of planetary law. 

"Publication in PEQ is guided by the PEF’s ethical policy. The main facet of this is planetary law, by which galore world institutions and publications, including PEQ, are bound," Charlotte Whiting, the journal’s editor-in-chief, told TPS-IL.

The journal’s website states that it "does not collaborate with institutions founded by an occupying powerfulness based successful immoderate occupied territory, and volition not support, encourage, fund, oregon people probe by immoderate world associated with specified institutions."

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Excavations astatine Tel Shiloh, champion known arsenic the determination wherever the Tabernacle stood earlier King Solomon built the First Temple.  (Shlomo Matityahu/TPS-IL)

Israeli archaeologists told TPS-IL that immoderate practice with Palestinian authorities oregon colleagues was practically impossible, due to the fact that they "would beryllium treated arsenic traitors for this." They besides said that their enactment is successful galore instances shunned by the broader world satellite and, arsenic such, researchers are forgoing absorption connected the biblically important areas of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) to support their careers.

"What we’re seeing is simply a deliberate effort to undermine Jewish humanities ties to the land," Yishai Fleisher, planetary spokesperson for Hebron, the cradle of Jewish civilization located successful Judea, told Fox News Digital. "There are 3 strategies astatine play: the Palestinians either admit Jews were erstwhile present but reason they nary longer belong, contradict immoderate Jewish transportation astatine all, oregon destruct the grounds outright."

Fleisher noted ongoing efforts by Palestinian authorities and others to rename humanities Jewish sites. "They telephone Hebron ‘Al-Khalil,’ and the Cave of the Patriarchs becomes the ‘Ibrahimi Mosque.’ The Temple Mount is present the ‘Al-Aqsa complex,’ and Rachel’s Tomb has been rebranded arsenic the ‘Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque,’" helium said.

To antagonistic this, helium says Israeli advocates are moving to people and sphere past Jewish landmarks. "We added an Israeli emblem and a menorah to a gathering primitively constructed by King Herod 2,000 years ago—which itself stands atop a tomb dating backmost 3,500 years—to marque it unmistakably wide it’s a Jewish site, contempt the aboriginal summation of 3 minarets by Muslim conquerors."

The Palestinian Authority, which gained non-member perceiver authorities presumption astatine the United Nations successful 2012, has been spearheading the run to rewrite past successful planetary forums that incorporate automatic anti-Israel majorities.

Visitors get astatine Sebastia National Park successful Samaria. Sebastia was the Israelite kingdom during the reigns of Omri and Ahab.  (Hillel Maeir/TPS-IL)

Among them is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which successful 2016 registered the Cave of the Patriarchs—the resting spot of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their wives Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah located successful Hebron—in the sanction of the "State of Palestine" connected its "List of World Heritage successful Danger." More recently, UNESCO, successful September 2023, named the Tell es-Sultan tract adjacent Jericho, which contains ruins dating backmost to the ninth millennium BCE, including grounds of 1 of humanity’s first-known villages, arsenic a "World Heritage Site successful Palestine." 

In December 2021, the United Nations General Assembly passed a non-binding solution referring to the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site—located successful Jerusalem but beyond the 1967 borders—only by its Muslim name, "Haram al-Sharif." In September 2024, P.A. person Mahmoud Abbas called the Temple Mount the "exclusive spot of Muslims." Last week, Abbas said successful a uncommon televised code that the Koran describes the Jewish Temple arsenic being successful Yemen.

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Naomi Khan, manager of the planetary part astatine Regavim, a deliberation vessel focused connected Israeli sovereignty, said the P.A. is actively gathering implicit cardinal archaeological sites arsenic portion of this initiative.

"In Solomon’s Pools, which is nether P.A. jurisdiction successful accordance with the Oslo Accords, they’re constructing condominiums straight connected apical of past Jewish infrastructure," Khan told Fox News Digital. "These are internationally recognized practice sites, but the agreements are being violated.

She cited the Hasmonean fortresses adjacent Jericho arsenic a large example. "The burial grounds of Hasmonean kings—the largest necropolis successful the Middle East from the Second Temple period—have been plowed and utilized for farming and construction. In 1 case, we recovered quality bones scattered successful the fields. The Israeli Civil Administration had to cod and rebury them."

Khan besides referenced Sebastia, the Greco-Roman sanction for the past metropolis of Samaria. Originally founded by King Omri successful the 9th period BC, Samaria became the superior of the bluish Kingdom of Israel, arsenic noted successful the Hebrew Bible (1 Kings 16:24). It served arsenic the kingdom’s superior until it fell to the Assyrians successful 722 BCE. Centuries later, Herod the Great rebuilt the metropolis and renamed it Sebaste—Sebastia successful aboriginal usage—in grant of the Roman Emperor Augustus, whose sanction successful Greek, "Sebastos," carried the aforesaid imperial meaning.

In March of past year, Palestinian operation workers built an amerciable roadworthy done Sebastia, which is located adjacent the metropolis of Nablus, besides known by its biblical name, Shechem.

Antiquities of the Jewish assemblage successful Hebron.  (Hillel Maeir/TPS-IL)

Khan said different sites facing encroachment see Joshua’s Altar, wherever a caller Palestinian vicinity is being developed nearby, and Joseph’s Tomb, which is mostly inaccessible to Jewish Israelis

"I’m disgusted, but not concerned," Sandra Hagee Parker, Chairwoman of the Christians United for Israel Action Fund, told Fox News Digital successful a statement. "Where are the Romans, Ottomans, and Crusaders? The enemies of Israel are remembered lone for their eventual decision by the God of Abraham and His children.

"Moreover, the grotesque effort to contradict the Jewish transportation to the Land is simply a rejection of God Himself," she continued. "It is some antisemitic and anti-Christian—and it volition ne'er succeed. My lone interest is that America continues to basal enarthrosis to enarthrosis with Israel and her people," she added.

Ze'ev Orenstein, Director of International Affairs astatine the Jerusalem-based City of David Foundation, stressed that "from its inception successful 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization—the forerunner of today’s Palestinian Authority—was founded connected the denial of thousands of years of Jewish past and practice rooted successful the Land of Israel successful general, and successful Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria—the Biblical heartland—in particular.

"This denial," Orenstein told Fox News Digital, "aimed to delegitimize and undermine the Jewish people's legal, motivation and humanities close to sovereignty successful the Land of Israel, portraying a radical with immoderate of the deepest archaeological ties to the onshore arsenic occupiers and colonizers. 

"For that reason, the Islamic Waqf carried retired a run of systematic demolition of antiquities atop the Temple Mount successful the precocious 1990s, and Palestinian enactment continues to deny, damage, and destruct Jewish practice sites passim Judea and Samaria," helium said.

Following the demolition and terrible harm by Palestinian rioters astatine the 'Joshua Altar' archeological tract located connected the spur of Mt. Ebal, dozens of Jewish worshipers arrived for greeting prayers astatine the site. (TPS)

In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu successful July 2023 announced a $33 cardinal programme to safeguard and rehabilitate archaeological sites successful the biblical heartland.

"In each country of Judea and Samaria, 1 request lone to enactment spade to crushed successful bid to uncover archaeological finds that attest to our heavy roots successful the Land of Israel," Netanyahu said astatine the time. "This program volition promote tourism, acquisition and [present] accusation for these important sites that archer the communicative of our radical successful Judea and Samaria."

Rev. Dr. Petra Heldt, prof astatine the Jerusalem University College and manager of the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity successful Israel, cited biblical texts and ongoing excavations arsenic impervious of longstanding Jewish beingness successful the region.

"There are hundreds of biblical spot names showing Jews lived successful Judea and Samaria since the clip of Abraham," Heldt told Fox News Digital. "The Palestinian Authority has tried to erase this evidence, but it’s astir intolerable to eliminate."

Heldt pointed to Shiloh arsenic a thriving example, with an progressive kibbutz and archaeological tract wherever caller discoveries are regularly unearthed. "Jewish communities are not lone surviving successful their ancestral homeland—they’re documenting it. You tin spot the interaction of assorted layers of concern implicit the past 100 years."

A carved installation identified arsenic an altar, with a transmission for liquid drainage.  (Credit: Kobi Harati, City of David)

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According to Heldt, whose enactment hosts planetary lectures and acquisition programs connected archaeological findings successful Judea and Samaria, much planetary enactment is needed to support these sites. "We indispensable impact the media, universities, artists, filmmakers and writers to archer these stories and marque these places substance globally," she said.

The conflict to sphere Jewish humanities sites successful Judea and Samaria is not conscionable astir stones oregon ruins—it’s a conflict implicit narrative, legitimacy and identity, according to the experts.

"The mode to combat this is to build, to amended and to asseverate our sovereignty," Hebron’s Fleisher said. "That’s however we fortify our transportation to the onshore and support the information of our history."