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Abstract
This essay demonstrates how Zionist settler colonialism is swiftly proceeding to claim ownership over the Palestinian neighborhood of Wadi Helweh in Jerusalem through the City of David archaeological park, a controversial project premised on disputed Israeli archaeological methods and biblical claims. It examines how guided tours of the site, consisting of tourists with predisposed beliefs and desires to receive more of what they already know to be true, serve to brand the site as conclusively Zionist and Jewish—a central aim of Israeli heritage tourism in Jerusalem. This takes place through a process referred to as “irrefutable divine internalization,” and through which Israel’s ongoing illegal annexation and occupation of Wadi Helweh is eclipsed, turning tourists’ gaze toward Israeli-Jewish ownership of space instead.
Notes
1 Personal conversation with a City of David tour guide, December 16, 2019, East Jerusalem.
2 Sonia Najjar, “Calling a Spade a Spade: The Case of East Jerusalem,” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture (blog), 2011, https://www.pij.org/blogs/114.
3 David Landy, “The Place of Palestinians in Tourist and Zionist Discourses in the ‘City of David,’ Occupied East Jerusalem,” Critical Discourse Studies 14, no. 3 (2017): 309–23, https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2017.1284684.
4 Doron Spielman, “Doron Spielman, Vice President, City of David Foundation,” ILTV Israel News, September 4, 2018, YouTube video, 4:12, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-nDEq63KeU.
5 Moshe Gilad, “Floating over Jerusalem without Ever Seeing the City’s Arab Residents,” Haaretz, July 9, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2017-07-09/ty-article-magazine/.premium/floating-over-jerusalem-without-ever-seeing-the-citys-arab-residents/0000017f-e5be-dc7e-adff-f5bf1e1e0000.
6 Olivia Sandri, “City Heritage Tourism without Heirs: A Comparative Study of Jewish-Themed Tourism in Krakow and Vilnius,” Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography 646 (2013), https://doi.org/10.4000/cybergeo.25934; Mark A. Bonn et al., “Heritage/Cultural Attraction Atmospherics: Creating the Right Environment for the Heritage/Cultural Visitor,” Journal of Travel Research 45, no. 3 (2007): 345–54, https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287506295947.
7 Susan Pollock, “Archaeology and Contemporary Warfare,” Annual Review of Anthropology 45 (2016): 215–31, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102215-095913; Information for Visitors to the City of David National Park, Emek Shaveh, December 2019, https://emekshaveh.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/visitors_info_web_eng-1.pdf.
8 Carlo Aldrovandi, Apocalyptic Movements in Contemporary Politics: Christian and Jewish Zionism (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
9 Wendy Pullan and Maximilian Gwiazda, “‘City of David’: Urban Design and Frontier Heritage,” Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 39 (Autumn 2009): 29–38, https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/202657; Raphael Greenberg, “Towards an Inclusive Archaeology in Jerusalem: The Case of Silwan/The City of David,” Public Archaeology 8, no. 1 (2009): 35–50, https://doi.org/10.1179/175355309X402745.
10 Johanna M. Selimovic and Lisa Strömbom, “Whose Place?: Emplaced Narratives and the Politics of Belonging in East Jerusalem’s Contested Neighbourhood of Silwan,” Space and Polity 19, no 2 (2015): 191–205, https://doi.org/10.1080/13562576.2015.1047577; Ahmad Amara, “The Possession of History and the Dispossession of Silwan’s Palestinians,” JPS 52, no. 2 (2023): 85–89, https://doi.org/10.1080/0377919X.2023.2206786.
11 Judaization refers to the almost unilateral emphasis of the (interpreted) Jewish character of Jerusalem and the city’s holy sites.
12 Shalem Plan Overview–The Plan to Reveal Ancient Jerusalem, Emek Shaveh, April 28, 2020, https://emekshaveh.org/en/shalem-plan/.
13 Marguerite Remy and Susan Power, Finding David: Unlawful Settlement Tourism in Jerusalem’s So-Called “City of David” (Ramallah: Al-Haq, 2022), https://www.alhaq.org/cached_uploads/download/2022/11/16/city-of-david-interactive-1-page-view-1668594122.pdf.
14 Rachel Busbridge, “Messianic Time, Settler Colonial Technology and the Elision of Palestinian Presence in Jerusalem’s Historic Basin,” Political Geography 79 (May 2020): 2–8, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102158.
15 Personal interview with an Israeli archaeologist who spoke on condition of anonymity, December 23, 2019, East Jerusalem.
16 Raphael Greenberg, A Privatized Heritage: How the Israel Antiquities Authority Relinquished Jerusalem’s Past, (Jerusalem: Emek Shaveh, October 2014), https://emekshaveh.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Privatized-Heritage-English-Web.pdf.
17 Personal interview with an Israeli archaeologist who spoke on condition of anonymity, January 2, 2020, West Jerusalem.
18 Greenberg, “Towards an Inclusive Archaeology in Jerusalem.”
19 Personal interview with a Palestinian archaeologist who spoke on condition of anonymity, January 2, 2020, East Jerusalem.
20 Personal interview with an Israeli archaeologist who spoke on condition of anonymity, October 9, 2023, West Jerusalem; personal interview with a Palestinian Islamic scholar who spoke on condition of anonymity, October 6, 2023, East Jerusalem; Ruth Margalit, “In Search of King David’s Lost Empire,” New Yorker, June 22, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/29/in-search-of-king-davids-lost-empire.
21 Ilan Ben Zion, “Digging for Jewish History near the Temple Mount,” Hadassah Magazine, May 2017, https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2017/05/04/digging-beneath-surface-temple-mount/.
22 Margalit, “In Search of King David’s Lost Empire.”
23 Zion, “Digging for Jewish History near the Temple Mount.”
24 Eilat Mazar, “The Temple Mount Excavations in Jerusalem 1968–1978 by Benjamin Mazar: Final Reports Volume IV (The Tenth Legion in Aelia Capitolina),” Qedem 52 (2011): 1-350, https://www.jstor.org/stable/i40142953.
25 Robin Ngo, “King David’s Palace and the Milo” Bible History Daily (blog), January 14, 2023, https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/jerusalem/king-davids-palace-and-the-millo/; “The Debate Over ‘King David’s Palace,’” Emek Shaveh, August 20, 2020, https://emekshaveh.org/en/the-debate-over-king-davids-palace/; “King David’s Palace,” City of David Ancient Jerusalem website, accessed January 16, 2024, https://cityofdavid.org.il/en/king-davids-palace-eng/; Steven Erlanger, “King David’s Palace Is Found, Archaeologist Says,” New York Times, August 5, 2005, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/world/middleeast/king-davids-palace-isfound-archaeologist-says.html.
26 A personal interview with a Palestinian urban planner who spoke on condition of anonymity, January 2, 2020, and again virtually on October 15, 2022.
27 Philippe Bohstrom, “Did David and Solomon’s United Monarchy Exist? Vast Ancient Mining Operation May Hold Answers,” Haaretz, November 21, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/MAGAZINE-timna-mines-support-biblical-tale-of-king-david-s-united-kingdom-1.5466612?lts=1630093347922.
28 Gustav Niebuhr, “The Bible, as History, Flunks New Archaeological Tests,” New York Times, July 29, 2000, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/arts/072900david-bible.html.
29 Margalit, “In Search of King David’s Lost Empire.”
30 Nadav Na’aman, “Locating Jerusalem’s Royal Palace in the Second Millennium BCE in Light of the Glyptic and Cuneiform Material Unearthed in the Ophel,” Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University 50, no. 1 (2023): 111–25, https://doi.org/10.1080/03344355.2023.2190284.
31 Ariel David, “King David’s Jerusalem Wasn’t Where We Thought, New Study Argues,” Haaretz, June 9, 2023, https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2023-06-09/ty-article/.highlight/king-davids-jerusalem-wasnt-where-we-thought-new-study-argues/00000188-9649-d3a7-adcf-b74f01390000.
32 Nadia Abu El-Haj, “Translating Truths: Nationalism, the Practice of Archaeology, and the Remaking of Past and Present in Contemporary Jerusalem,” American Ethnologist 25, no. 2 (May 1998): 166–88, https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1998.25.2.166.
33 Margalit, “In Search of King David’s Lost Empire,”
34 Margalit, “In Search of King David’s Lost Empire.”
35 Margalit, “In Search of King David’s Lost Empire.”
36 Saree Makdisi, “The Architecture of Erasure,” Critical Inquiry 36, no 3 (Spring 2010): 519–59, https://doi.org/10.1086/653411.
37 Greenberg, “Towards an Inclusive Archaeology in Jerusalem,” 36.
38 “Insiders’ Jerusalem: Expansion of the National Park in the Visual Basin of the Holy City,” Terrestrial Jerusalem, February 20, 2022, https://t-j.org.il/2022/02/20/insiders-jerusalem-expansion-of-the-national-park-in-the-visual-basin-of-the-holy-city/.
39 Pullan and Gwiazda, “‘City of David.’”
40 Chiara De Cesari, “Ottonostalgias and Urban Apartheid,” International Journal of Islamic Architecture 5, no. 2 (July 2016): 339–57, https://doi.org/10.1386/ijia.5.2.339_1.
41 Personal interview with a Palestinian professor and lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity, January 2, 2020, East Jerusalem.
42 Personal interview with an Israeli archaeologist who spoke on condition of anonymity, January 2, 2020, East Jerusalem.
43 Personal interview with a Palestinian professor and urban planner who spoke on condition of anonymity, January 4, 2020, East Jerusalem.
44 Governmental support of Elad’s “revitalization” endeavors include similar and complementary efforts to those spearheaded by the settler organization Ateret Cohanim in the adjacent neighborhood of Batan al-Hawa. In a personal interview with a leading representative of the organization in January 2021, he referred to the Palestinians as “… Amalekites who have taken the place of the legitimate Jewish owners.” The organization has relied extensively on the 1970 Legal and Administrative Matters Law to lay claim to pre-1948 properties owned by (mainly Yemenite) Jews to “inject and restore Jewish life into the area.” For more on the multidimensional dispossession of Palestinians in Batan al-Hawa, see Eyal Raz and Aviv Tatarsky, Broken Trust: State Involvement in Private Settlement in Batan al-Hawa, Silwan (Jerusalem: Ir Amim and Peace Now, May 2016), https://www.ir-amim.org.il/sites/default/files/Broken%20Trust-Settlement%20in%20Batan%20al-Hawa-Silwan.pdf; Amara, “The Possession of History and the Dispossession of Silwan’s Palestinians.”
45 “Absentees’ Property Law,” Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, accessed December 21, 2023, https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/538.
46 “Absentees’ Property Law,” Adalah.
47 Pullan and Gwiazda, “‘City of David.’”
48 Personal interview with a Palestinian from Wadi Helweh who spoke on condition of anonymity, January 5, 2020, East Jerusalem.
49 Personal interview with one of the heads of a Palestinian NGO, East Jerusalem, November 17, 2019.
50 “Reignited Plan for ‘King’s Garden’ Park Threatens to Displace over 1000 Palestinians from Al Bustan, Silwan,” Ir Amim (blog), March 25, 2021, https://www.ir-amim.org.il/en/node/2627.
51 Remy and Power, Finding David.
52 Personal interview with an Israeli archaeologist who spoke on condition of anonymity, January 4, 2020, East Jerusalem.
53 Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 147, 1949, https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/article-147#:∼:text=Grave%20breaches%20to%20which%20the,suffering%20or%20serious%20injury%20to.
54 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Rome, July 17, 1998, https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XVIII-10&chapter=18&clang=_en.
55 The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “UNESCO Slams Israeli Archeological Digs in East Jerusalem,” Forward, July 9, 2015, https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/311747/unesco-slams-israeli-archeological-digs-in-east-jerusalem/.
56 “Discoveries of Eilat Mazar: The Summit of the City of David,” Let the Stones Speak, September–October 2022, https://armstronginstitute.org/52-discoveries-of-eilat-mazar-the-summit-of-the-city-of-david.
57 Shahar Shilo and Noga Collins-Kreiner, “Tourism, Heritage and Politics: Conflicts at the City of David, Jerusalem,” Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research 24, no. 6 (2019): 529–40, https://doi.org/10.1080/10941665.2019.1596959.
58 Shilo and Collins-Kreiner, “Tourism, Heritage and Politics.”
59 Personal conversation with a City of David tour guide, December 16, 2019, East Jerusalem.
60 Amanda Borschel-Dan, “Futuristic Tech Dramatically Illuminates the City of David’s Past,” Times of Israel, June 30, 2017, https://www.timesofisrael.com/futuristic-tech-dramatically-illuminates-the-city-of-davids-past/.
61 “City of David VR,” City of David Ancient Jerusalem website, accessed December 26, 2023, https://cityofdavid.org.il/en/product/the-city-of-david-comes-to-life-vr-tour/.
62 Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, “The Occupation of the Senses: The Prosthetic and Aesthetic of State Terror,” British Journal of Criminology 57, no. 6 (November 2017): 1279–300, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azw066.
63 Shalhoub-Kevorkian, “The Occupation of the Senses.”
64 Shilo and Collins-Kreiner, “Tourism, Heritage and Politics.”
65 Rachel Busbridge, “Messianic Time, Settler Colonial Technology and the Elision of Palestinian Presence in Jerusalem’s Historic Basin,” Political Geography 79 (May 2020): 2–8, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102158.
66 Shalhoub-Kevorkian, “The Occupation of the Senses.”
67 Dennis Sandole, “Cognitive Blindness,” Beyond Intractability, 2003, https://www.beyondintractability.org/audiodisplay/sandole-d-9-blindness1.
68 Uzma Z. Rizvi and Murtaza Vali, “The Fertile Goddess at the Brooklyn Museum of Art: Excavating the Western Feminist Art Movement and Recontextualizing New Heritages,” Near Eastern Archaeology 72, no 3 (September 2009): 143–45, https://doi.org/10.1086/NEA20697232.
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Espinosa-Najjar
Dr. Espinosa-Najjar has a PhD in law, a master’s degree in global politics, and extensive expertise in human rights, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding. The essay draws on in-depth research and interviews with Israeli, Palestinian, and international actors during and after the doctoral fieldwork process.