‘Tunnel vision’: how Israel is using archaeology for political ends | Israel

WUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Jerusalem this month, and Israel’s route contained more archeology than anything else. On his first day, Benjamin Netanyahu took Rubio underground for excavations near the Western wall. On the second day, the Israeli Prime Minister gave the American visitor an honor to open a tunnel buried under a Palestinian region along a Roman Street nicknamed a pilgrimage road in a “David City” archeology park established by an Israeli settlement organization.

Both events aimed to emphasize the Jewish roots and status of Jerusalem, and Netanyahu emphasized as “eternal and undivided capital”.

While Rubio was on this ancient tour of Jerusalem, Israeli planes bombed the most important storage tank of ancient works in Gaza, and made thirty -year archaeological work.

The war on history has long been part of the wider Israeli-Palestinian struggle. Authorities from Israeli Antiquities Authority followed Israeli troops to the occupied areas in search of works.

However, this struggle rarely stood as much as last month. Rubio’s tour is designed to underline a common Jewish-Christian history focusing on Jerusalem, which connects the evangelical base of the Republican party to the state of Israel.

Together with their wives, Netanyahu and Rubio were accompanied by a man who embodies Bond, Mike Huckabe, Evangelical Baptization, the US Ambassador to Israel and an Unapolic defender of Israeli land expansion.

“There is really no such thing as Palestinian, ve he said, and rejected the term of the West Bank in favor of the use of Israel for the occupied region of Jew and Samaria.

By organizing a tour that described its foundations as a Jew, Netanyahu and Huckabee were trying to support the historical case for the total Israeli control of Jerusalem instead of a divided city that would emerge from the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

Netanyahu devoted his political career to destroying any possibility of a Palestinian state, and now they have allies with a shareholder who has a control -controlled share in a US administration. The devotion of a two -state solution is irregular, but many effective figures within IT will support the large -scale Annex of Israel of the West Bank.

In order to support the support of the conquest of absolute Israel as a solution to the Middle East conflict, independent archaeologists say that Netanyahu and US supporters are trying to build a history of all the complexities of a land that has been discussed and shared for thousands of years.

Rubio called the “pilgrimage road” tunnel “perhaps one of the most important archaeological areas on the planet”. It follows the path of the first century road to the region, known as the Temple Mountain by the Jews and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif.

Elad, who founded the David Archeology City in the expropriated Palestinian territory in the Silwan region, presented the Jews as the way to the temple of Jesus Christ.

The enterprise was illegally declared by the UN because it was built on the occupied region as part of a wider effort to distribute Palestinians. UN Inquiry Commission He condemned the use of archeology for political purposes last year.

“Despite the rich, heterogeneous history, the narrative presented in the city of David focuses only on the Jewish history of the site… He ignores all other periods and cultures,” he said.

Alon Arad, President of an independent archaeologist group, drew attention to the fact that the “Hajj Way” tunnel used a sledgehammer in 2019 by the Israeli Ambassador David Friedman Donald Trump in the first period of Donald Trump.

“This festival is completely strange now,” he said. “It is not the news that settlers and evangelicals and other right -wing Americans find perfect match. However, this ceremony is only another proof that the Bad Archeology and the whole David Archeology Park project have nothing to do with archeology or inheritance.”

A large stone -step structure in the region was claimed by some archaeologists as the city of David in the Bible, but the claim was discussed warmly. Arad also accuses ELAD organization of using discredit methods.

“Archaeologists stopped digging in tunnels at the beginning of the 20th century,” he said. “The fact that people dug in unauthorized tunnels in tunnels under their homes makes all these into bad archeology. After dug in a tunnel, you have a very narrow perspective. This brand of the pilgrimage Road is an attempt to judge the entire heritage of this region. It is the best example of the tunnel view.”

Emek Shaveh also condemned the bombing of the archaeological warehouse in Gaza on Sunday, when Israel was directed to the western wall of Rubio.

“Since the beginning of the war, Israel has damaged or destroyed hundreds of protected cultural spaces and work since the beginning of the war.” He said. “The warehouse included archaeological studies in the Gaza Strip and hosted tens of thousands of elements. Some were removed, but many were destroyed.”

The IDF gave three days to empty the école Biblique, operated by Palestinian archaeologists and French supporting the site before the bombing was bombed, but there was only time to remove some works on a single truck convoy.

An école biblik official said, “Due to the lack of trucks and the presence of people and the danger, some of the works disappeared,” he said.

The warehouse was captured by the Israeli forces in an aggressive manner that employees of the Israeli Antiquity Authority were allowed to violate international law by violating international law. On this occasion, a global epidemic prevented the plan to remove some works.

The objects that archaeologists have managed to remove it before bombing while moving to open trucks, the only species allowed by the Israeli army. Now they are unnamed that they are open to elements.

Cogat, the Israeli military department engaged in occupied regions, made a statement stating that “the rare archaeological works of the Christian community in Gaza described as the transfer of rare archaeological works, mosaics and pottery”.

In fact, the works came from multiple periods, which were connected to more than one civilization and belief. “This is a strange characterization,” he said. Orum I don’t know what Cogat’s motivation is.