Israel digs in on control of ancient West Bank sites

The next major fight between Israel and Palestine might be fought not on the ground but below it. Israel is currently attempting to seize the land around archaeological sites throughout the West Bank, the largest of which has an ancient history going back three millennia. But Palestinian officials believe Israel is claiming these areas illegally, and they are revving up for a political battle.

Why is Israel going after these sites?

Israel is “undertaking a major drive to develop and expand archaeological sites in the occupied West Bank” because officials believe it is “incumbent upon Jewish citizens to connect to their history and heritage,” said The Forward. There are several locations that Israel is working on developing, with two being the most prominent: Sebastia, a small village near the West Bank city of Nablus, and Jericho, another West Bank city that is home to the ancient Hasmonean Palaces.

Sebastia is “one of the most layered archaeological sites in the Middle East” and is now serving as a “flashpoint in a fight between Israeli and Palestinian authorities over land, heritage and narrative,” said CNN. The town’s history “goes back at least 3,000 years” to when it was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Israel. The archaeological site “lies in Area C of the West Bank, under full Israeli civil and security control according to the Oslo Accords,” while the town itself is in “Area B, under mixed Palestinian-Israeli jurisdiction.”

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In Jericho, Israeli officials want to control the Hasmonean Palaces site because they claim it is under “deliberate and systematic destruction by the Palestinian Authority,” which Israel says has “targeted it and other sites in a bid to erase evidence of Jewish ties to the land,” Israel Ganz, the head of the West Bank’s Yesha Council, told The Forward. To try and control these sites, as well as others, Israel’s parliament has proposed a bill to create a new Israeli body in the West Bank, which would “have the power to conduct excavations, declare sites, expropriate lands and more,” said Haaretz.

What has the Palestinian response been?

The Israeli bill, as well as Israel’s overall push near the sites, has “drawn criticism from Palestinians and Israeli rights groups who say it is tantamount to annexation of occupied land and would expand Jewish settlements,” said Reuters. Israel’s actions are “intended to expand control in these areas, deep inside Palestinian territories,” Hani Al-Hayek, the Palestinian Authority’s tourism minister, said to the outlet.

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Palestinian officials are taking action to stop Israel’s movement in the region. At their urging, UNESCO recently designated Sebastia a full “World Heritage site, hoping it will prevent Israel extending ​its control at the ancient village,” said Reuters. Some Israelis seem to agree that their government is being overzealous. The digs are “another way of weaponizing. That is, you attach more importance to a certain kind of heritage, and less importance to other kinds of heritage,” Rafi Greenberg, an archaeology professor in Israel, told CBS News.

The Israeli government, however, remains steadfast. “The area is Israeli territory. It belongs to the Jewish people,” Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu told CNN. No matter the end result, this archaeological debate will be a “testcase to a battle not just over the past, but about the present and the future of the territory and the people who live near its historic stones.”

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