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Published online 16 April 2008 | 452, 787 (2008) | doi:10.1038/452787a
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Deal for Holy Land artefacts
Israel and Palestine draft an agreement on how to allocate archaeological sites.
A draft agreement on how archaeological sites and artefacts should be allocated in the event of an Israel–Palestine peace deal was received positively last week by Israeli archaeologists in Jerusalem.
There are nearly 7,000 archaeological sites in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, of which about 1,000 have been excavated, according to a database compiled as part of the work on the agreement.
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I wonder if Jewish people had accepted uganda as their homeland as it was once suggested in the past, would it be an easy mission to create jewish antiquities there as what they are doing now in Palestine?!
Thank you Ziad, for making my point. If you declare all of Jewish history a myth or fraud, peace is impossible. Ziad speaks for many in the Palestinian community, and illustrates what many fail to realize. The mission of the Palestinian people is to create a nation instead of Israel, instead of next to Israel. Asking the Palestinians to make peace with Israel is asking them to give up their identity
What draft agreement by Israel and Palestine? You write that "the future disposition of these sites has not been discussed in the framework of talks between Israelis and Palestinians." There is no draft agreement between Israel (which means the state of Israel) and Palestine (which means the state of Palestine, that does not exist). There is, however, a written agreement between Israel and Palestinian archaeologists, which -- at least here in Israel -- is not supported by the majority of Israeli archaeologists or citizens. Posted by: Edward L. Tepper
I am an archaeologist working in California. One afternoon at a conference, I and another Californian colleague were complaining about how difficult it was to work with competing groups of Native Americans, land developers, and government officials. A fellow seated nearby broke out laughing and said, “You should try working in Israel- they would be arguing about who gets to shoot at you first!†I believe that as scientists, archaeologists will be able to come reach an agreement on how to excavate and curate cultural remains regardless of their nationalist affiliations. As seen in the comments above, there will be strong opposition from political and religious points of view. Personally, as an archaeologist outside the religious or political mire, it is obvious that there has been a shared occupation of the region for many millennia. Just as the Israelis and Palestinians shared the land in antiquity, they will have to share it in the future.
Im afraid Dr Hurd is not understanding the dispute here. This dispute is not about land, it is about the misappropriation of history. Jews believe that the artifacts that are being discovered point to continuous Jewish history in the land of Israel. Palestinians archeologists believe there is no connection between the Jews and the land of Israel. Similarly, Hamas believes that the Holocaust was a Jewish fabrication to kill handicapped Jews and blame the Germans. To Jews, denial of the archeological evidence is another form of Holocaust denial. The belief that archeology can arise abouve politics is naive. Archeology is a very political field-much more so than molecular biology. The fate of pre-Islamic artifacts in Islamic countries is not great, ie Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan. Most Jews would be loath to leave their artifacts in the hands of those who have motives to destroy them