amity1844
Senior Member
- Jun 1, 2014
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Palestine-Israel Journal: The Politics of Archeology and Parks in Jerusalem
This article in the Palestine-Israel Journal, a quarterly, details how archaeological digs are constructed to destroy evidence of all eras other than those that elevate Zionist claims of sovereignty:
This article in the Palestine-Israel Journal, a quarterly, details how archaeological digs are constructed to destroy evidence of all eras other than those that elevate Zionist claims of sovereignty:
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the settler Elad organization and the Western Wall Heritage Fund work hand in hand in order to compress the Jewish history into the short periods of Israelite-Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem, while cultural layers that are not associated with Jewish political sovereignty or with the sacrificial cult are ignored. The history of Jerusalem is stripped both of the eras that preceded the Kingdom of Israel, and those that followed when it became the Holy City for the Christians and Al-Quds for the Muslims.
When archaeological finds are used as proof of the states historic right to take possession of a given place and to undermine the rights of the local people living there, archaeology has been diverted from its role as an independent field of research. When tour guides in the site of ancient Jerusalem turn it into nothing more than an illustration or backdrop for the biblical stories, without acknowledging the difference between a mythical perspective of the past and the actual archaeological finds, or when they do not acknowledge the rich remains from other cultures and societies that inhabited the place throughout time, they are feeding the tourists a distorted, nationalist version of history.