Baptismal relic latest focus of opposing narratives
Screenshot from a Facebook video of an Israeli army truck removing a 6th-century stone relic from a Palestinian home in the Bethlehem district of the West Bank, 20 June 2020
Daoud Kuttab reports in Al-Monitor:
In the pre-dawn hours of June 20, a huge Israeli flatbed truck arrived under the protection of the Israeli army at the home of Taysir Abu Mufreh, the director of the Tuqu municipality, a town in the Bethlehem district of the West Bank. Using the truck’s forklift, the Israelis removed an eight-ton 6th century stone relic that had been used by early Christians to conduct adult baptisms.
Palestinian photojournalist Oday Daibes posted a video on social media of the Israeli action, causing a great deal of criticism against the Israeli archaeological theft. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported June 20 on the archaeological relic, documenting the various stages it went through since 2000.
International law prohibits an occupying power from taking archaeological relics. The international community made such action a war crime due to the archaeological theft by the Nazi regime during their occupation of most of Europe back in the 1940s. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, The Hague Convention of 1954 and its protocols of 1991-1999, and UNESCO 1970 and 1972 all make theft of archeaological items a war crime.
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee and responsible for culture and education, tweeted her condemnation of the act calling it a “typical” Israeli act, writing, “Israel steals our land & resources, plunders our archeological/historical sites, appropriates our cultural heritage & seeks to eradicate all evidence of our identity & continuity in our ancestral homeland — a settler-colonial attempt at erasing evidence of the indigenous.”
Israelis were quick to respond, claiming that the archaeological unit in the civil administration had been looking for this relic for decades, which they say was stolen from an archaeological site in the Bethlehem area. The Times of Israel, which reported on the story, quoted an Israeli official boasting excitement. “This is an important and exciting moment,” said Hananya Hizmi, head of the Archaeological Unit at the Civil Administration, the Defense Ministry body that governs the West Bank. “We have succeeded in returning a unique archaeological relic after years of searching.”
But Palestinians scoffed at the claim of the relic being hidden. George Rishmawi, the director of Abraham Path, a local tourist initiative that conducts tours in Palestine, told Al-Monitor that the stone baptismal site has been part of a regular tour for years. “You can see it on our website. Thousands of people have seen it and pictured it,”