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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 11d

@uni-goettingen.de are welcoming an Israeli archaeologist knowingly participating in a war crime #🏺https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/214519.html

October 29, 2025: Wellhausen Lecture with Prof. Dr. Yonatan Adler (Ariel University) - Georg-August-University Göttingen

Website of the Georg-August-University Göttingen

www.uni-goettingen.de

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 12d

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s... #🏺

‘Tunnel vision’: how Israel is using archaeology to win US support for goals

Scientists say Netanyahu government and its US backers are trying to construct a history shorn of all complexity

www.theguardian.com

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 16d

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

BBC Radio 4 - Crossing Continents, Saving Gaza's Past

How Palestinians are trying to save Gaza's 5,000-year history.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Andy Brockman @andybrockman.bsky.social · 18d

Thank you to everyone who has read and shared our story about the allegations the President of the #EAA supported a campaign pressuring the Executive Board to reverse its Gaza vote.

There is now a #WatchingBrief video with a discussion putting the story in context.

Please Like Share and Subscribe.

EAA President (allegedly) Orchestrated Campaign Against EAA Board!

YouTube video by The Watching Brief

youtu.be

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 19d

A reputation in ruins? Some would sooner sacrifice institutional reputations, careers, colleagues’ free will and mental health, democracy…all to enable Israel to continue their unabated slaughter of Palestinian men, women and children. What a hill to die on, what a thing to be remembered for.

Andy Brockman @andybrockman.bsky.social · 19d

EXCLUSIVE: EAA PRESIDENT ACCUSED OF HELPING ORCHESTRATE PROTEST CAMPAIGN AGAINST HER OWN EXECUTIVE BOARD’S GAZA VOTE

thePipeLine with the extraordinary story of how the President of the European Association of Archaeologists is accused of helping orchestrate a campaign to overturn its Gaza vote.

EXCLUSIVE: EAA PRESIDENT ACCUSED OF HELPING ORCHESTRATE PROTEST CAMPAIGN AGAINST HER OWN EXECUTIVE BOARD’S GAZA VOTE

thePipeLine can reveal allegations that the President of the beleaguered European Association of Archaeologists [EAA], Professor Eszter Bánffy, was instrumental in organising a covert campaign to p…

thepipeline.info

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Dimitrij Mlekuz Vrhovnik @dimitrij.bsky.social · 19d

This is more than distressing. Unless there is full accountability, I do not see how the EAA can continue in its present form.

Andy Brockman @andybrockman.bsky.social · 19d

EXCLUSIVE: EAA PRESIDENT ACCUSED OF HELPING ORCHESTRATE PROTEST CAMPAIGN AGAINST HER OWN EXECUTIVE BOARD’S GAZA VOTE

thePipeLine with the extraordinary story of how the President of the European Association of Archaeologists is accused of helping orchestrate a campaign to overturn its Gaza vote.

EXCLUSIVE: EAA PRESIDENT ACCUSED OF HELPING ORCHESTRATE PROTEST CAMPAIGN AGAINST HER OWN EXECUTIVE BOARD’S GAZA VOTE

thePipeLine can reveal allegations that the President of the beleaguered European Association of Archaeologists [EAA], Professor Eszter Bánffy, was instrumental in organising a covert campaign to p…

thepipeline.info

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Archaeodeath @archaeodeathprof.bsky.social · 19d

This is shocking and concerning for the EAA and its membership. As a signatory of the open letter asking the EAA to act responsibly and ethically, the way @archagainstaparth.bsky.social and EAA members were treated is appalling. More thoughts later.

Andy Brockman @andybrockman.bsky.social · 19d

EXCLUSIVE: EAA PRESIDENT ACCUSED OF HELPING ORCHESTRATE PROTEST CAMPAIGN AGAINST HER OWN EXECUTIVE BOARD’S GAZA VOTE

thePipeLine with the extraordinary story of how the President of the European Association of Archaeologists is accused of helping orchestrate a campaign to overturn its Gaza vote.

EXCLUSIVE: EAA PRESIDENT ACCUSED OF HELPING ORCHESTRATE PROTEST CAMPAIGN AGAINST HER OWN EXECUTIVE BOARD’S GAZA VOTE

thePipeLine can reveal allegations that the President of the beleaguered European Association of Archaeologists [EAA], Professor Eszter Bánffy, was instrumental in organising a covert campaign to p…

thepipeline.info

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 19d

www.rts.ch/audio-podcas...

Les trésors sauvés de Gaza à lʹInstitut de monde arabe à Paris

Il y a presque 20 ans, des hommes et des femmes firent le rêve dʹun musée dʹarchéologie à Gaza. Celui-ci aurait dû refléter lʹincroyable richesse des sous-sols de ce territoire stratégique marqué par ...

www.rts.ch

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 20d

www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/09/17/h... #archaeology #🏺

How one Swiss museum helped to evacuate thousands of Gaza artefacts ahead of an Israeli strike

Despite Geneva Museum of Art and History’s efforts, an expert says 30% of artefacts were left behind and destroyed in the attack on Gaza’s main archaeological storage facility

www.theartnewspaper.com

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 20d

Slide 17, correction for clarity: Christian Zionists believe in provoking this second coming of Jesus Christ, whereas Jewish Zionists do not; they await their own Messiah.

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 21d

A cornerstone of the political platform of Israel’s most extremist ministers, most recently of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Betzalel Smotrich, is the destruction of the Islamic buildings of Haram al-Shareef in order to build a Jewish Temple. In August 2025 Smotrich participated in an event commemorating the passing of Rabbi Kook, and told the Mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Lior, “I will give the money, you will build the Temple” While this project might seem farfetched, it attracts enormous moral and financial support from both Jewish and Christian Zionists. Both groups harbour the belief that such a move will bring about the second coming of Jesus, and are the main target audience for El’ad’s tourist programs in the archaeological areas under their management.

El’ad’s role in influencing political agendas is not new. Prior to the centering of the Temple, El’ad’s guided tours pivoted around a single concept: the site of the city of David as original Jerusalem, and Jerusalem as the capital of the Israelite kingdom. The guided tours made only passing references to the Temple or any other topic related to Jewish worship. This shift, away from the City of David as an original capital (to this new, Temple-oriented, narrative), coincided with Donald Trump’s electoral campaign, after which he swiftly moved to officially recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This is hardly coincidence; one of Trump’s megafunders is Miriam Adelson—billionaire and also major benefactor of El’ad. She is widely recognised as one of the main influences on Trump’s foreign policy.

In short, the long-standing plans to destroy al-Aqsa mosque in order to build a Jewish temple are not a remote possibility. Practical steps have been taken towards this objective, including by the so-called Temple Institute, which has collected enough donations to build a “Third Temple”, prepared implements for cultic practice, and even offered training for priestly roles. Part of the hefty donations received, from Jewish and Christian religious fanatics alike, are even dedicated to breeding a perfect “pure” red heifer required for the consecration of a Jewish temple on the site. Amidst Israel’s Gaza genocide and regional landgrabs, many IOF soldiers are also driven by this Holy War ideology.

Learn More
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg42v2r10kyo.amp

https://www.newarab.com/analysis/israeli-settler-push-greater-israel-syria-lebanon

https://www.jerusalemstory.com/en/blog/how-settlers-warp-history-silwan

Silwanic: the Wadi Hilweh Information Centre

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-west-bank-settlers-red-cows-third-temple?utm

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/02/western-wall-tunnel-opening-jerusalem-israel-palestine-peace-514531

https://www.palestinechronicle.com/passoversacrifice-extremist-jews-try-to-smuggle-goats-into-al-aqsa-compound/

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 21d

The underground connection between the Silwan pool and the Western Wall plaza has since been completed, and was officially inaugurated on the 15th of September, in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister and wanted war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.

This represents a significant and worrying step in what Palestinians have long identified and documented as an intentional “Judaization” of Jerusalem; in other words, the obliteration of the city’s Arab, Muslim, and Christian history and character. Through this tunnel, tourists will be able to walk through an imaginary past Jerusalem, without having to even see the real Palestinian community living above their heads. Read in its broader political context, though, this move really has much more foreboding connotations.

El’ad’s archaeological excavations in the lower part of the tunnel—yet another example of an illegal research dig in occupied territory—have uncovered a few meter-long stretch of a Roman road. The road, flanked by porches probably hosting shops, was dubbed “the Pilgrims’ road”, and has been instrumental in re-focusing the story of the area as being connected with the ascent of Jewish worshippers towards the second Jewish temple site. Since that moment, “the Temple”, and Jewish worship on the Haram al-Shareef, have become the key focus of the story conveyed by El’ad in its guided tours.

Over the years, and thanks in part to El’ad, the Jewish Temple has taken centre stage in Zionist political discourse. Recently, an increasing number of Jewish worshippers have broken a long standing religious prohibition, and begun entering the al-Aqsa esplanade to perform acts of worship, including attempting the ritual sacrifice of animals, smuggled live past the gates. This is especially problematic as the Haram al-Shareef is under formal protection of the Jordanian Minister of the Awqaf (religious endowments), and Israel has no sovereignty over the complex

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 21d

Aside from and prior to archaeological excavations, the burrowing of tunnels and the expansion of pre-existing subterranean water channels is a longstanding practice by imperial and colonial agents in Jerusalem.

In 1867, British envoy Charles Warren explored the network of water cisterns adjacent to the foundations of the Haram al-Shareef, making his way thorugh with explosives. He opened a passageway that lead in the direction of the Dome of the Rock, which was met with strong opposition in the local community. The passageways near the Haram remained sealed until 1967, when the Israeli Minister of Religion reopened them. In 1982, Rabbi Geetz began a clandestine excavation to reopen Warren’s passage, believing that he would find the Ark of the Covenant at its end.

Since the time of Warren and his gunpowder, Palestinians have suspected that tunnelling in the Old City is ultimately aimed at the destruction of the al-Aqsa compound. These suspicions are well-founded, as around the same time as Geetz’ digging, a plot by a Zionist organization to blow up the Dome of the Rock was exposed and foiled.

During the 1990s, illegal settler NGOs continued the practice of excavating and expanding underground tunnels, which led in many cases to violent clashes with the Palestinian community. El’ad, too, has inserted itself in this long history of colonial tunnelling. However, they are the only group trying to justify and legitimise the practice of tunnel-digging as archaeological inquiry. The archaeological community has repeatedly condemned these in-tunnel excavations as grave professional misconduct. Archaeology reconstructs the past through the analysis of the layers of dirt and materials that have accumulated in a place, working from the surface downwards. Excavating horizontally in tunnels destroys the sequence of the layering (stratigraphy), preventing an accurate understanding of the chronology, chain of events, and the position of materials within the sequence.

Despite the condemnations, tunnelling has become one of El’ad’s most prominent and profitable endeavors. The largest of the tunnels, which El’ad excavated under the main road of the Wadi Hilweh neighbourhood, has undermined the stability of the Palestinian houses that sit above. In 2018, the whole length of the main tunnel, connecting the Silwan pool with the parking lot excavation, was opened to paying tourists. Simultaneously, El’ad obtained management of an area inside the Old City walls that connects with the Buraq Wall (next to the Western Wall plaza, and began to excavate a series of tunnels, connecting the parking lot excavation area and the area inside the Old City, plus another set of tunnels expanding under the ground into what is today the Western Wall plaza.

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 21d

In the tradition of colonial/ imperialist biblical archaeology, these excavations proceeded by identifying every material remain of the past uncovered in Silwan, in light of the narrative that the Bible provides for the area around the pool of Siloam. The Canaanite water source that feeds the lower pool through a rock-cut channel, which the Palestinian community used to fetch drinking water and called ‘Ayn Umm al-Daraj, was interpreted as the water channel that biblical King David is said to have used to conquer the citadel of Yabous. Based on this assumption, the whole area was then interpreted as the biblical “City of David”, and the debate limited to matters of chronology more than of substance. In the Western consciousness, Palestinian Silwan was obliterated.

After the Six Day War of 1967, Silwan became part of the occupied territories and fell into a state of institutional neglect—the Israeli municipal authorities systematically ignored the housing and infrastructural needs of its growing population, refusing to issue planning schemes or building permits. The areas immediately surrounding the Old
City walls were declared a “National Park”. The boundaries of the park were progressively expanded to include larger and larger areas of Silwan. The legislation of the National Park forbids all alterations to the landscape, unless the Nature and Parks authority issues a special permit. Within this framework, in 1992 a religious, right-wing Zionist illegal settler NGO called El’ad, began to operate in Silwan.

Right from the onset of their operation in Silwan, El’ad began to violently expropriate or illegally acquire Palestinian houses to establish a Jewish-only settlement. On the pretext of protection of antiquities, supposedly at risk, this Jewish-only settlement was established in the midst of the areas which had been excavated before 1967. Having failed to gain approval for their original plan of building 200 jewish-only housing units inside the archaeological areas, El’ad decided to focus its efforts on the development of heritage tourism for Zionists, and the funding of excavations. Thus, El’ad created an archaeological park that caters exclusively to Zionist audiences in the heart of Palestinian Silwan. Misappropriating the past and its remains, they constructed a militant narrative aiming to erase Palestinian existence both from the present and the history of Silwan.

El’ad’s archaeology-related work proceeded on a double track. On the one hand, in violation of the 1954 Hague convention that prohibits research excavations in occupied territory, they expanded the excavated surface areas in Silwan as much as possible, for example, expropriating a parking lot that served the area and was used for gatherings by the Palestinian community. On the other hand, they also turned their attentions underground.

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 21d

On Israeli archaeological malpractice, heritage crimes, and US complicity #archaeology #🏺

Title: Illegal excavations in East Jerusalem—archaeological malpractice in service of Zionism and Israel’s ‘holy war’ in the region

Image: Silwan village, occupied East Jerusalem, with the Haram al-Shareef complex and al-Aqsa mosque above.
www.alt-arch.org

The Palestinian village of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem lies right below the southern corner of Haram al-Shareef, the complex upon which the al-Aqsa mosque rises. On Monday the 15th of September 2025, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio walked below the roads of this village, all the way to the Western Wall plaza inside the Walls of the Old City. This was the grand opening ceremony of a tourist attraction that was not only built in contravention of International Law, and the principles of archaeological methodology, but is also foreboding of grave danger to the status quo that protects the sovereignty of the compound.

The area of Silwan has been inhabited con-tinuously since the Bronze Age, and has been the object of archaeological attention from as early as 1838, when British biblical scholar Edward Robinson, in his travels through Ottoman Palestine, iden-tified the pool of water located at the bottom of the hill as the Siloam pool, mentioned in the christian Gospels.

A long series of excavation campaigns followed Robinson’s early exploration. During the following century, the area witnessed large scale campaigns led by the German, French and British Schools of Archaeology. The most recent of them, conducted by Dame Kathleen Kenyon, and dubbed by her biographer “the last great imperial excavation”, was interrupted only by the 1967 Six Day War.

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 22d

Israeli strikes damage Yemen’s national museum! #🏺#archaeology www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/09/15/y...

Yemen’s national museum damaged by Israeli strikes, Houthi authorities say

The building’s windows and doors were shattered by the attack on 10 September—while one local professor has expressed concerns that the collection could now be at risk

www.theartnewspaper.com

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Dr Katherine Blouin @isisnaucratis.bsky.social · 22d

The program for the upcoming hybrid workshop on Endangered Heritage in Egypt, Sudan and Palestine is now out!
I cannot overstate how much I am looking forward to this important event
everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2025/09/15/c...

Cities on the Edge Workshop: Program is Out!

The program for the workshop Cities on the Edge: Documenting, Preserving, and Teaching Endangered Urban Heritage in Egypt, Sudan and Palestine is now out! The event will take place on Oct. 31 and N…

everydayorientalism.wordpress.com

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Dr Katherine Blouin @isisnaucratis.bsky.social · 25d

🚨 IOF plans to bomb the archaeological magasins of @ebafjerusalem.bsky.social!
Huge respect for + immense solidarity w all the 🇵🇸 colleagues risking their lives on the daily to save what remains of their archaeological heritage from 🇮🇱 rampage & theft www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

Archaeologists scramble to evacuate Gaza artefacts threatened by Israeli strike

Officials hurriedly remove nearly three decades of finds in ‘high-risk operation’

www.theguardian.com

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(Mar)Chella Ward @luxmea.bsky.social · Sep 4

I have a new article out today in Public Humanities, where I try to find some words for how historicide is (and has always been) a project of European colonialism - and I try to find some words for the historians who continue to support it. 🇵🇸✊🏻

Open access: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

How the Past Became a Weapon of Genocide in Palestine | Public Humanities | Cambridge Core

How the Past Became a Weapon of Genocide in Palestine - Volume 1

www.cambridge.org

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Rebecca Ruth Gould @rrgould.bsky.social · 27d

Important book on Gaza from SOAS @soasuni.bsky.social colleague Dina Matar, scheduled for publication by Saqi Books in November:

Archiving Gaza in the Present
Art, Memory and Erasure
Edited by Dina Matar and Venetia Porter

saqibooks.com/books/saqi/a...

book cover for Archiving Gaza in the Present
Art, Memory and Erasure
Edited by Dina Matar and Venetia Porter. Black and white collage

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Society for the Study of the Past @socstudyofthepast.bsky.social · 25d

Report from @theguardian.com on the IOF's plan to bomb decades of finds in Jerusalem's French Biblical and Archaeological School. Immense solidarity with all our Palestinian colleagues risking their lives daily to save heritage in Gaza, and all of Palestine.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

Archaeologists scramble to evacuate Gaza artefacts threatened by Israeli strike

Officials hurriedly remove nearly three decades of finds in ‘high-risk operation’

www.theguardian.com

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 26d

The contents of the six trucks have been moved to a safe location, still within the enclave. "They must remain in Gaza, otherwise they will fall outside the international framework that protects them," explains René Elter.

Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 26d

Le contenu des six camions a été déplacé en lieu sur, toujours dans l’enclave. « Ils doivent rester à Gaza, sinon ils sortiront du cadre international qui les protège », explique René Elter.

Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 26d

Le bâtiment et les trésors qu’il abrite sont sous responsabilité française, et connus de l’armée israélienne. Celle-ci a d’abord donné 30 minutes aux habitant pour évacuer les alentours, en les prévenant par SMS.

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Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Genocide @archagainstaparth.bsky.social · 26d

C’est la politique depuis une semaine à Gaza-ville : cibler les immeubles les plus hauts pour forcer la population à partir vers le sud. Un prélude à l’opération Chariots de Gédéon II, qui doit aboutir à la conquête et l’occupation de la ville.

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