Forsaking the Material Legacy of our Forebears

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The threat to the archaeological record in the heartland of Israel, Judea and Samaria, the cradle of our civilization, is untenable, and cannot be subject to political persuasions.

By ILAN POMERANC, from the JPost -  https://tinyurl.com/2s4xf4pv

A muted but persistent cultural cleansing and destruction of immense proportion is occurring throughout Judea and Samaria. 

Historic sites, antiquities, and artifacts are being plundered, damaged, pilfered, or simply erased.  

In certain instances, illicit development work by Arabs in the area, such as the paving of pirate roadways or illegal mining operations, causes the unintentional destruction of rare and indescribably important antiquities. In other cases, it is the desire for looting and profit that causes intentional and irrevocable damage to archaeological sites in Judea and Samaria. 

Further still, and perhaps most egregiously, is the willingness of Arab leadership figures in Judea and Samaria to erase or culturally appropriate the history and archaeology of the Nation and Land of Israel fuel and intensify this cultural cleansing. After all, a rich archaeological record and abundant historical texts are the most conspicuous and potent testaments to the falsehood of Arab narratives concerning Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael. 

These attempts at cultural appropriation and expunction are also a critical aspect of the global campaign waged by many against Israel’s legitimacy and its very right to exist. The farcical proclamations made by UNESCO, the ethically bankrupt international body with a contempt for historical fact regarding anything to do with Israel, is one illustration of this campaign.

There is a troubling lack of awareness among the general Israeli public of the size and scope of the wanton destruction of antiquities in Judea and Samaria and its repercussions. 

Outside of Israel, awareness is almost non-existent except in archaeological and academic circles, and even then, it is limited. In recent years, a number of Israeli NGOs have been working hard to identify and publicize the ISIS-style damage and destruction. 

Addressing the problem properly will only come about with a sea change in the policies of the State of Israel toward archaeology as a whole in Judea and Samaria. A public outcry and the political pressure it can create are necessary to have the required policy changes enacted.

Currently, the Israel Antiquities Authority, one of the leading, if not the leading organization of its type in the world, is severely limited both in resources and in freedom of action in Judea and Samaria.

Given the Arab authorities’ facilitation as well as subtle and not so subtle support for the destruction and cultural appropriation of historic sites, diplomatic agreements on the subject have been contravened and so should be null and void. As such, the IAA should be empowered and have its mandate expanded in Judea and Samaria.

The threat to the archaeological record in the heartland of Israel, Judea and Samaria, the cradle of our civilization, is untenable. It cannot be subject to political persuasions. When the Taliban blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan, outrage and condemnations were not based on whether one subscribed to leftist or rightist political ideologies. 

So too, politics are absent when we oppose the construction of a new parking lot or shopping mall over a two or three-century-old exilic cemetery on foreign soil in Europe or elsewhere.

It should then go without saying that there be no politicking when it comes to stopping the looting and destruction of the ancient tombs of our nation’s vaunted freedom fighters, the Hasmoneans, on our native soil at Jericho or at any other site in Judea and Samaria. 

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An Ancient Spoon stirs Mischief against Israel

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For the full article by Melanie Philips go to - https://tinyurl.com/yh4j7fdf

An ostensibly minor incident a few days ago has provided devastating evidence of the brainwashed malevolence within the Biden administration towards not just Israel but the Jewish people.  In a ceremony at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Bethlehem, the Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm delivered to the Palestinian Authority a 2,700-year-old spoon dating from the Assyrian empire.

The Assyrians, an ancient people that first emerged around 2000 BCE in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), developed a vast empire that included much of the Middle East, including Egypt, Babylonia, Israel and Cyprus. It finally collapsed around 600 BCE. The spoon, which is thought to have been used to load incense onto fires during rites dedicated to the Assyrian gods and the dead, was seized from the Jewish-American billionaire Michael Steinhardt as part of a criminal probe in New York. In a deal he struck to avoid prosecution, Steinhardt agreed in 2021 to turn over $70 million worth of stolen antiquities that the authorities claim were illegally acquired in Israel.

Ivan J. Arvelo, a special agent in charge of U.S. Homeland Security Investigations in New York, described the transfer of the spoon to the PA as “the historic repatriation” of the artefact. In a similar effusive vein, George Noll, head of the US Office of Palestinian Affairs, called the spoon “an example of Palestinian cultural patrimony”.  Another DHS official, Jeff Brannigan, declared, “This repatriation is representative of HSI’s commitment to ensuring the storied heritages of peoples around the world through the preservation and protection of cultural artefacts.”

This is all utter garbage. It was not an act of repatriation, because the spoon never belonged to the “cultural patrimony” or “storied heritage” of a Palestinian people. There was no “Palestinian people” in antiquity.  The “Palestinian people” didn’t exist at all until it was invented in the 1960s in a strategy to destroy Israel cooked up by Yasser Arafat, the Egyptian-born head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, in cahoots with the Soviet Union.

During the 1920s and 1930s, many of the Arabs who were the 20th-century ancestors of today’s “Palestinians” poured into what is now Israel and the disputed territories from neighbouring Arab states in pursuit of the prosperity they believed would result from the return of the Jews to their ancestral Jewish homeland.  Despite this, the “Palestinians” have gone to laughable lengths to assert that they were the original inhabitants of the land. For example, they have claimed to be descended from the Philistines — who were in fact ancient Greeks.

So why is the US, which claims to be Israel’s staunch ally, giving credence to a false Palestinian identity created to write the Jews out of their own history?  The Biden administration’s sympathy with the Palestinians is well documented. It has persistently refused to call them to account for their murderous aggression and incitement. It continues to fund them regardless of their “pay-for-slay” rewards to terrorists’ families. It forces Israel to undermine its own security in pursuit of a “two-state solution” that the Palestinian Arabs have refused for almost a century.

But what the Assyrian spoon transfer reveals is that the Palestinian Big Lie is being promoted as truth by none other than the Department of Homeland Security, which was created after 9/11 to protect America against terrorist attacks. Far from being a key link in the chain of western security, the DHS has internalised the fiction about Palestinian identity that is promoted as a principal weapon in the war of extermination against Israel — and is in turn the flag behind which march the Islamist foes of the west.

Noll said of the spoon transfer, “This is a historic moment between the American and Palestinian people and a demonstration of our belief in the power of cultural exchanges in building mutual understanding, respect and partnership.”  It was certainly a historic moment. What it demonstrated, however, was that the Biden administration is a far more profound foe of Israel and the Jews than most people have yet realised.

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Dazzling Artifacts found in Dead Sea Cave of Horror

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Times Of Israel - For the full article go to - https://tinyurl.com/4xykux6j

In a stunningly rare discovery, dozens of 2,000-year-old biblical scroll fragments have been excavated from Judean Desert caves during a daring rescue operation. Most of the newly discovered scroll fragments — the first such finds in 60 years — are Greek translations of the books of Zechariah and Nahum from the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, and are written in two scribal hands. Only the name of God is written in Hebrew in the texts.

The fragments from the Prophets have been identified as coming from a larger scroll that was found in the 1950s, in the same “Cave of Horror” in Nahal Hever, which is some 80 meters (260 feet) below a cliff top. According to an Israel Antiquities Authority press release, the cave is “flanked by gorges and can only be reached by rappelling precariously down the sheer cliff.” 

Along with the “new” biblical scroll fragments from the Books of the Minor Prophets, the team excavated a huge 10,500-year-old perfectly preserved woven basket — the oldest complete basket in the world — and a 6,000-year-old mummified skeleton of a child, tucked into its blanket for a final sleep. 

Due to the arid climate of the region, the huge Pre-Pottery Neolithic period basket, woven in a unique style from plant material, was preserved whole. “As far as we know, this is the oldest basket in the world that has been found completely intact and its importance is therefore immense,” said the IAA.

So far, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) and 500 caves have been systematically surveyed by three teams led by IAA archaeologists Oriah Amichai, Hagay Hamer and Haim Cohen. Ganor estimates that about 25 percent of the Judean Desert has not yet been surveyed. Using drones and high-tech rappelling and mountain-climbing gear, archaeologists and a team of volunteers from pre-military academies have been able to access many hitherto “unreachable” caves — some of which hadn’t been entered by a human being for almost two millennia. 

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Israeli boy, 6, finds 3,500-year-old artifact

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From i24NEWS 25-5-2020

The object is a clay tablet depicting a captor leading a naked and humiliated prisoner,

A six-year-old boy made the discovery of a lifetime after unearthing a rare artifact thought to be more than 3,500 years old. 

Last March, while touring the northern Negev archaeological site of Kibbutz Re'im in Tel Jemmeh, six-year-old Imri Elya stumbled upon a small, square clay object engraved with two figures engraved on it.

Curious about the small discovery, Elya's parents decided to send it to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the National Treasures Department for more answers. After photographing and documenting the artifact, archaeologists were surprised to realize that this was a unique and rare find that had not been discovered until today in any other archaeological excavations in Israel.

    According to the IAA, the object is a clay tablet depicting a captor leading a        naked and humiliated prisoner, dated to the Late Bronze Age between the            12th and 15th centuries BCE.

Archaeologists note that during this period, the Egyptian Empire ruled Canaan. The latter was divided into "city states" ruled by local kings. From letters sent by Canaanite kings of that period to Egypt (known as the El Amarna letters), it is known that internal struggles and control conflicts existed between Canaanite cities.

Researchers reason that "the scene depicted on the tablet is taken from descriptions of victory parades; hence the tablet should be identified as a story depicting the ruler's power over his enemies. This opens a visual window to understanding the struggle for dominance in the south of the country during the Canaanite period," the IAA said in a statement. 

"Antiquities are our cultural heritage, and each find adds to the entire puzzle of the story of the Land," said Pablo Betzer, an archaeologist from the Southern District of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

"There is great importance in turning archaeological findings over to the National Treasures Department to be researched and displayed for the entire public to enjoy. The delivery of the tablet to the Antiquities Authority indicates value education and good citizenship on the part of Imri and his parents."

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