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Christian Archaeologist Attacked by Palestinian Authority in their Legal Battle Against Biblical Archaeology By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz
The Israeli Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Bible last week in a case brought by the Palestinian Authority in which they tried to have archaeology in Judea and Samaria declared a crime. Undeterred, the PA turned to UNESCO to intervene while threatening archaeologists around the world with litigation if they participate in digs in Israel. One archaeologist, a Christian who has been sifting the sands of the Holy Land for Decades, stood strong as he was singled out for attack.
Yesh Din and Emek Shaveh, two left-wing Israeli nongovernmental organizations, filed the original petition in a Jerusalem District Court. The petition demanded that the location of the digs, the names of the archaeologists conducting them, and details of any findings be made public. The District Court rejected the petition so the two groups then appealed the decision with the supreme court. Citing the Freedom of Information Act, they demanded the government reveal the locations of any archaeological work being carried out in Judea and Samaria. The petition also called for the government to make public the identities of the archaeologists working there.
Unlike archaeological work in other areas of Israel, archaeological work in Judea and Samaria falls under the auspices of the Civil Administration, which is part of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a part of the Defense Ministry.
The supreme court ruled against making the names of the archaeologists public since it would make them vulnerable to academic boycotts, a tactic used by the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement. Israeli and pro-Israel professors are frequently prevented from publishing their research, giving lectures, participating in academic conferences, or obtaining stipends and research grants.
“There’s a clear and genuine fear that publishing the names of the archaeologists … could cause concrete damage to their professional and financial interests, as well as those of the institutions with which they are affiliated,” Justice Yosef Elron wrote, explaining the decision. “Publishing the archaeologists’ names exposes them to academic boycotts in a manner that could genuinely damage their research work and their academic futures.”
“In addition, I’ve been convinced that publishing the archaeologists’ identities could even undermine their ability to complete the specific digs about which information has been requested and to make their future results known through academic publications,” Elron wrote.
The court also reasoned that the results could undermine Israel’s “interests in the framework of future negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, and could even serve as a tool of attack for parties that seek to harm Israel in the international arena.”
The PA responded to the decision by the Supreme Court by issuing a warning to archaeologists around the world that participating in research in Israel “would expose them to legal accountability” and mar their academic record. In their official statement released on Tuesday, the PA asked museums and international institutions to examine all artifacts originating in Israel and refuse to accept any piece “stolen from occupied Palestinian land.”
Dr. Scott Stripling (Courtesy)
Dr. Scott Stripling, the provost of The Bible Seminary in Texas and Director of Excavations for the Associates for Biblical Research. Dr. Stripling has been sifting the sands of Israel for over 20 years. Dr. Stripling and his organization were individually named in the suit brought by the NGO’s.
“They wanted to get the names of the board members and even the names of the donors in order to bring pressure to bear on them,” Stripling told Breaking Israel News. “It’s not going to affect us either way. We don’t care because what we are doing is way too important.”
For perspective, Dr. Stripling is currently digging in Shiloh, which he surmises may be the true site of the Tabernacle, a site of immeasurable archaeological and Biblical significance.
“Not all the Palestinians object to what we are doing,” Dr. Stripling said. “This is, after all, the study of the history of the land.”
Dr. Stripling explained the claims against him, as he understood them.
“They claim we are destroying the artifacts and robbing the Palestinians people,” Dr. Stripling said. “That is the PA and the UN position.”
He refuted these claims out of hand.
“We don’t care who is in charge,” Dr. Stripling said. “Philosophically we are more closely aligned with Israel but regarding archaeology, we are apolitical. We cooperate with whoever is in charge. We are quite simply salvaging the artifacts. If there is a change in government, everything is here in storage for them and we would cooperate with them.”
Dr. Stripling emphasized that Palestinian archaeologists do not excavate in areas that are currently under Israeli control.
“If they apply for a permit to dig in Israel, they would be seen as collaborating with the Israeli government,” he explained. “Since they can’t dig, it is important for everyone that we be permitted to continue. The real intention of the lawsuit was to stop all digging in Judea and Samaria until the conflict is settled.”
“This conflict has been going on since Isaac and Ishmael,” Dr. Stripling quipped. “It probably isn’t going to be settled any time soon. In the meantime, we have to save the archaeological evidence before it deteriorates.”
Dr. Stripling referred to Khirbet el-Maqatir, the previous focus of his research.
“It’s been totally destroyed since we dug there,” he said. “Houses were built on top of the site, illegally of course. Farmers plowed over antiquities. Antiquities in Area C (under Israeli control constituting about 60 percent of Judea and Samaria) are at risk and we can lose that history.”
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Argentina Rabbi Recovers After Antisemitic Attack
Rabbi Shlomo Tawil, co-director of the Chabad House in Rosario, Argentina. Photo: Facebook.
JNS.org – Rabbi Shlomo Tawil, director of Chabad-Lubavitch in Rosario, Argentina, was recovering at home after being assaulted by three youths on Sunday night during the holiday of Shavuot.
According to neighbors who came to the rabbi’s aid, the attackers shouted antisemitic insults at the rabbi, and began hitting him in the head and abdomen, reported Chabad.org.They then threw him to the floor, kicked him and trampled his hat before fleeing.
Thousands of Palestinians Riot on Border, Amid Heightened Gaza Tensions
A Palestinian man inspects the site of an Israeli air strike in the southern Gaza Strip, June 14, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Ibraheem Abu Mustafa.
Thousands of Palestinians rioted on the Israel-Gaza Strip border on Friday, hurling rocks, firebombs and explosive devices at IDF troops.
Also on Friday, numerous blazes were ignited in southern Israel by incendiary balloons sent over the border from Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Early Friday morning, the Israeli Air Force struck several Hamas targets in Gaza, in response to a rocket attack the previous night in which a religious school in Sderot was damaged.
WHERE BDS AND TERRORISTS CONVERGE by Caroline Glick
On May 31, the cry went out from Times Square, New York City, to annihilate Israel and extend the terror war against the Jewish state to America.
As they did in Beirut, Berlin, London, Tehran, and Dearborn, Michigan, Israel-haters gathered at Times Square to call for Israel’s dissolution on the day the Iranian regime has determined to be “Al Quds Day,” that is, Jerusalem Day.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) posted a video of the event. In it, a series of speakers called over and over again for Israel’s annihilation, voiced support for terrorists and terrorism and called for the war against Israel to come to New York.
Nate Chase from the World Workers’ Party led the crowd in chanting, “We don’t want not two state! We want ’48!”
LEFTIST COMEDY IS LITERALLY HITLER by Daniel Greenfield
Leftists have never been as humorless, unfunny and touchy as they are now. And they’ve never poured as much time and money into late night comedy, Netflix comedy specials and assorted people angrily shouting things about Trump and their confused sexual identities into a microphone, as they are now.
Comedy, as supported by billion-dollar media corporations based in blue states that would legalize killing babies and heroin before they would permit gun ownership, has returned to its roots in Greek political life. Except the ancient Greeks thought that people insulting each other’s politics was funny and the modern Proggies think that the insults should be one-sided and delivered in an echo chamber.
UCLA DAILY BRUIN CENSORS FACTS ABOUT STUDENT LINKS TO TERRORISTS by David Horowitz and Sara Dogan
The UCLA Daily Bruin and its editorial staff have made a mockery of the concept of a free press, opening their pages to terrorist political organizations and closing them to the opponents of terrorist propaganda and Jew hatred. The Bruin’s allegiance to the destroy-Israel left and failure to observe the core principles of journalism in a democracy was glaringly obvious in its coverage of a recent student government ruling.
The resolution passed on Tuesday, May 21, by the UCLA Undergraduate Students Association asserted that—contrary to all evidence and a long history of spreading the genocidal lies of Hamas terrorists, and harassing Jewish students and their invited speakers— the group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is not anti-Semitic.
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New column!
Soeren Kern : Britain’s Back-Door Blasphemy Law
The long-running dispute revolves — most recently — around an effort by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims, a cross-party formation of around two-dozen MPs in the British Parliament, to institutionalize the definition of Islamophobia in racial rather than religious terms.
The proposed definition has been opposed by many Britons, including British Muslims, who warn that it would effectively shield Islam from scrutiny and valid criticism.
Carrie Sheffield : NY Times Claims Trump Does Not Care About Re-Election Campaign
The New York Times claimed that President Donald Trump does not care about his re-election campaign or about the policies he would seek to enact during a second term.
“In a recent overarching state-of-the-race briefing in Florida with Brad Parscale, his campaign manager, Mr. Trump was consistently distracted and wanted to discuss other things,
Jonathan S. Tobin : Fake News? David Friedman Didn’t Endorse Annexation
The New York Times got quite a scoop when, in an interview with its Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said that he favored Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. That was the lede of Halbfinger’s article, as well as in the headline. And that was also the way the story was played in virtually every one of the many publications that picked up on the story.
Daniel Greenfield : A Movement of Professional Victims and Conspiracy Theories
Every movement has a mission statement. “Make America Great Again” is the conservative one. (It’s the “Again” part that makes it conservative.) The enemies of making America great have one too.
If the radicals had red hats, they would say, “They’re Out To Get You.”
TOTGY has been the leftist motto since before Marx learned to shave and then decided to stop doing it. The arc of history may bend toward many places, but the black rainbow serviced by a snarling leprechaun with a PhD and a cocaine problem always begins and ends in the same paranoid place.
Ben-Dror Yemini : Israelis Should Not Celebrate U.S. Ambassador’s Talk of West Bank Annexation
In certain circumstances, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said last week, Washington would recognize the annexation of Palestinian territories by Israel.
As expected, Friedman’s comments led to fierce criticism. The Palestinians already call him the “settler spokesman.”
But in fact, instead of blaming the settlers, the Palestinians can only blame themselves. And given that we are in the era of “narratives,” namely, lies that pretend to be history, we should pay attention to the facts.