The Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee on Tuesday approved the advancement of a controversial bill to establish a West Bank Heritage Authority to oversee antiquities and heritage sites in the West Bank.
Seven MKs voted in favor of the bill, and five MKs opposed it. It will need to pass three readings in the Knesset’s plenum to become a law. The Justice Ministry requested that the bill be returned to the Ministerial Committee for Legislation for further consideration, stating that it contradicts Israel’s policies regarding the West Bank and “raises international sensitivity.”
The proposed heritage authority would be responsible “for all matters of heritage, antiquities, and archaeology in the area, including preservation, restoration, development, and rescue of antiquities, excavation, development, and management of sites, and making them accessible to the public.”
The bill proposes that the heritage minister appoint a nine-member council to set policy and oversee the implementation of the authority’s activity. As well, the proposed authority’s budget would be estimated at NIS 30 million.
“This is one of the laws that is most important for me to advance here,” committee chairperson MK Zvi Sukkot (Religious Zionist Party) said of the bill. “Jewish history is found less on Dizengoff and more in Shiloh.”
“The heritage of the Jewish people today lies desecrated beneath the ground,” he continued, giving the example of Joshua’s Altar on Mount Ebal, saying there is “Arabic graffiti on the altar and people hold barbecues there.”
“Antiquities are being destroyed and disappearing under our hands, almost on a daily basis, and we want to put order to this issue,” Sukkot added.
MK Amit Halevi (Likud), who sponsored the bill, echoed Sukkot’s praise.
“It is time to take responsibility and stop the ongoing looting of our cultural treasures and the destruction of the heritage sites of the Jewish people,” he said. “Today’s vote will transfer responsibility to a statutory authority within the Heritage Ministry, and they will no longer be under military administration.”
Critcism of the bill
The committee’s legal advisor, Tami Sella, and MK Gilad Kariv (The Democrats) criticized the bill, arguing that it places Israeli governance over Palestinians residing in the West Bank, and not only archaeological sites.
Sella warned that Knesset legislation had never granted powers of expropriation, acquisition, and excavation over the area, as well as supervisory powers over Palestinian residents there.
“Even in the few cases in which Knesset legislation has addressed the area [West Bank], it has almost always applied personally to Israelis, primarily to create uniformity between the law applicable to Israelis in the area and in Israel,” Sella said, noting that this is not the case here, as the bill “deviates from the principle of territorial sovereignty.”
“This legislation is not worthy in my view, first and foremost because it is part of creeping annexation,” Kariv stated. “The bill uses archaeology as a tool to take over land and expel Palestinians from their homes.”
The European Union’s delegation to the Palestinians also condemned the bill’s advancement in a post to X/Twitter, saying it “raises serious concerns, including with regards to the possible violation of international law.”
Civil Administration Staff Officer Benjamin Har Even furthered that the authority should work “with the powers of the regional commander under the area’s security legislation.”
Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu disagreed, saying that the bill marks “good as an interim stage, until full sovereignty is applied. We absolutely want to apply sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. It is ours. Christian heritage sites are also being destroyed, not only those of the Jewish people.”
The Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) opposed some of the wording of the bill, arguing that it contradicts the current status quo, as many archaeological sites on either side of the Green Line are operated by its officers.
Granting full authority to the Heritage Ministry “would harm ongoing management,” according to the INPA, which asked that management, maintenance, and operation of the sites remain under its jurisdiction in coordination with the proposed heritage authority.
PA submits 14 West Bank heritage sites to UNESCO
On January 1, the Palestinian Authority’s Tourism Ministry announced in a social media post that it had submitted a preliminary list of 14 heritage sites under its purview to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The move, which would raise the number of Palestinian heritage sites at UNESCO to 24, is “aimed at strengthening the presence of Palestinian heritage at the international level, and protecting it from threats,” according to the post.
In response to the post, Eliyahu urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a January 12 letter to take immediate action and address the PA’s motion to submit 14 West Bank heritage sites to UNESCO as Palestinian.
“This is not a cultural move, but rather a strategic front in a political, legal, and ideological battle against the State of Israel,” Eliyahu wrote in his letter. “The move seeks to appropriate Jewish and Christian sites of the highest historical and national significance and present them to the world as part of 'Palestinian heritage,' thereby creating de facto facts in both the ideological and legal arenas.”
Eliyahu pointed out that the sites in question are located in Area C of the West Bank, which falls under Israel’s administration, and includes the Hasmonean palaces, Wadi Qelt, the Cave of Chariton, Mar Saba Monastery, the Herodium, ancient Samaria, and the Judean Desert heritage sites.
“Additionally,” Eliyahu added, “professionals operating in the field point to the systematic and ongoing destruction of heritage sites not adjacent to Jewish settlements, much of it under the Palestinian Authority's responsibility, with its knowledge or blind eye.”
The letter concluded with Eliyahu’s urgent request to create a “dedicated ministerial team” made up of the Heritage Ministry, Foreign Affairs Ministry, Defense Ministry, and Justice Ministry, in order to “quickly develop a comprehensive political, legal, and ideological action plan to halt this move and strengthen Israeli control over national heritage assets.”
“Failure to respond or a partial response will be perceived internationally as silent acquiescence. This is a battle for narrative, sovereignty, and historical rights, and we must not enter it too late.”
Keshet Neev contributed to this report.