PA Foreign Ministry: Israeli authorities are using archeological excavations as “material for falsifying the facts and history, by distributing and marketing them as antiquities that confirm the colonialist occupation's narrative”

Headline: "The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues an important warning"

"The [PA] Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates issued an important warning today [May 21, 2019] in Ramallah regarding the excavations that the Israeli occupation is carrying out in the Palestinian territories.

In a press release, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the relevant international organizations and institutions, including UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) and the World [Travel and] Tourism Council (WTTC), to take legal and moral responsibility for the archaeological excavations that the occupation is carrying out in the Palestinian territories, and to establish an international fact-checking committee on this matter…

The ministry also warned about the consequences of archaeological delegations and researchers participating in a crime such as this, because they might have to give a legal accounting, first of all, and similarly their academic and research record will be subjected to a petition to give an accounting.

The [Ministry of] Foreign Affairs also demanded that international museums and archaeological institutions be careful and investigate carefully when dealing with archaeological items that the occupation and its institutions are distributing, and not to agree to display any item that was stolen from the occupied Palestinian territories…

[The ministry] noted that it has again been proven that the courts and judicial system in Israel are an inseparable part of the occupation system; they are involved in covering and hiding its crimes and violations, and they issue decisions on the basis of the occupation state’s colonialist interests… The Israeli Supreme Court proved this in its response to a petition that two Israeli human rights institutions submitted, which petitioned to receive the names of the archaeologists that are carrying out the excavations in the occupied West Bank…

It should be noted that many settlements in the West Bank were established in Palestinian archaeological areas…

The ministry emphasized that the occupation authorities are working to exploit the [Israeli] excavations and the Palestinian archaeological finds as material for falsifying the facts and history, by distributing and marketing them as antiquities that confirm the colonialist occupation's narrative, with the intention of influencing Israeli and international public opinion."