PLUNDERING PALESTINE - Jerusalem Quarterly

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Kletter’s big problem, hidden amongst the many citations of sources, is Nadia Abu El-Haj, whose comprehensive study of a century of Zionist archaeology Facts on the Ground (Chicago, 2001) has become a major source on this subject. Throughout the book, he belittles and distorts her work in bolstering his own allegations, or ignores it. But finally his animus breaks out and he lays into her, briefly but vehemently. While trying not to assault her in the total, American way, as an ignorant anti-Semite, he scolds her for her criticism of ‘Hebrew’ and Israeli archaeologists. Furthermore, she says nothing that Israelis have not been saying for some time (but to each other in Hebrew, according to the cited work), and of course, she did not do what Kletter shines at, blame the victims (“Those who lost the names also bear responsibility” – p.218). The whitewash, in the face of all the damage that we are told was done (but the plethora of direct oral history accounts of inhabitants and their transmission by historians such as Elias Sanbar and Walid Khalidi, or novelists such as Elias Khoury had long since told the story in its chilling plenitude) is based on the fact that ‘everybody’ does the same thing, thus creating a blank slate on which subsequently to etch the new nation’s imprint. One example Kletter gives is that of Turkey and its wholesale destruction of the multicultural Anatolian past. And of course, he has a point: Turkey perpetrated genocide, at the very least on its Armenian population; Israel limited itself to ethnocide. Roger Heacock is a historian who teaches at Birzeit University. Endnotes 1 As shown for example by Ranajit Guha, “The Prose of Counter-Insurgency,” Subaltern Studies 2 (1983) 1-43. 2 Meron Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1848 (Berkeley, 2000). 3 A research professor in archaeology, Pringle has completed three of the four volumes containing the complete corpus of crusader religious and secular buildings in Palestine; he told me that he had to work as quickly as possible, because too many of these unprotected sites were continually being razed and transformed into parking lots. Jerusalem Quarterly 33 [ 75 ]
‘Time Out’ in Jerusalem Penny Johnson The April 2007 issue of Time Out Jerusalem featured the Old City marketplace. “These narratives worked to secure the ideology of discovery and to realign the threatening political geography of the Arab Middle East as a cartography of leisure.” –Rebecca Stein on Israeli tourist guides written after the Oslo peace agreements 1 Rarely have writers on Jerusalem, of whatever political cast or character, viewed the city of stone as a city of fun, partying, upscale consumption or youthful glamour. Growing up in the 1940s in very different settings, both Edward Said and Amos Oz bemoaned their Jerusalems’ melancholy provincialism. Since then–several wars, one occupation, an illegal annexation, two intifadas and a Wall later–Jerusalem’s reputation continues to get drearier, as the oxygen of commerce and conviviality in Arab Jerusalem is increasingly turned off, while Jewish Jerusalem is marked as ever more provincial, Orthodox and angry. [ 76 ] REVIEWS ‘Time Out’ in Jerusalem
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PLUNDERING PALESTINE Ownerless Obje
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Table of Contents EDITORIAL Why Are
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course of the Wall. “It’s all o
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law applied in the West Bank and th
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later resold to Arab schools. Some
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war and exile in Egypt, where Sakak
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the collection project had begun -
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Two other things seem worthy of men
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The National Library and Orientalis
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The Owners of the Objects Following
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19 I recently had the opportunity t
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the cultural heritage of the region
Page 25 and 26: as commodities, consumer demand and
Page 27 and 28: as a springboard, and in consultati
Page 29 and 30: for the fifth draft on Palestinian
Page 31 and 32: Chapter 4 Section 20 Presumption of
Page 33 and 34: Later in the draft under Section IV
Page 35 and 36: The archives of the IAA also contai
Page 37 and 38: In interviews conducted as part of
Page 39 and 40: 19 Garstang, “Eighteen Months Wor
Page 41 and 42: and thereby devising a comprehensiv
Page 43 and 44: tomb robbing from foreign archaeolo
Page 45 and 46: Impact of the western separation wa
Page 47 and 48: ministry appeared willing to accept
Page 49 and 50: Khalat al-Qadat The most interestin
Page 51 and 52: The excavation had uncovered what a
Page 53 and 54: That may be true, but conditions in
Page 55 and 56: epatriating antiquities are still e
Page 57 and 58: Reparation for Lost Palestinian Pro
Page 59 and 60: ights of Palestinian land owners st
Page 61 and 62: it sought to shield itself from lia
Page 63 and 64: Annex 7 included details concerning
Page 65 and 66: Endnotes 1 United Nations General A
Page 67 and 68: There are more revelations in Pappe
Page 69 and 70: The most prominent of these was Ord
Page 71 and 72: Jewishness-Judaism has many faces a
Page 73 and 74: a truly commercial run of the volum
Page 75: Kletter does one thing that is virt
Page 79 and 80: Counting Game: Israel In, Palestine
Page 81 and 82: ‘I Come From There and Remember
Page 83 and 84: these buildings are permanent - hom
Page 85 and 86: Poverty in Jerusalem is growing at
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PLUNDERING PALESTINE - Jerusalem Quarterly

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