1st Edition
A New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine Palestine History and Heritage Project 1
A New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine discusses prospects and
methods for a comprehensive, evidence-based history of Palestine with a
critical use of recent historical, archaeological and anthropological methods.
This history is not an exclusive history but one that is ethnically and
culturally inclusive, a history of and for all peoples who have lived in Palestine.
After an introductory essay offering a strategy for creating coherence
and continuity from the earliest beginnings to the present, the volume presents
twenty articles from twenty-two contributors, fifteen of whom are of
Middle Eastern origin or relation.
Split thematically into four parts, the volume discusses ideology, national
identity and chronology in various historiographies of Palestine, and the
legacy of memory and oral history; the transient character of ethnicity in
Palestine and questions regarding the ethical responsibilities of archaeologists
and historians to protect the multi-ethnic cultural heritage of Palestine;
landscape and memory, and the values of community archaeology and
bio-archaeology; and an exploration of the “ideology of the land” and its
influence on Palestine’s history and heritage.
The first in a series of books under the auspices of the Palestine History
and Heritage Project (PaHH), the volume offers a challenging new departure
for writing the history of Palestine and Israel throughout the ages. A
New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine explores the diverse history
of the region against the backdrop of twentieth-century scholarly construction
of the history of Palestine as a history of a Jewish homeland with roots
in an ancient, biblical Israel and examines the implications of this ancient
and recent history for archaeology and cultural heritage. The book offers a
fascinating new perspective for students and academics in the fields of anthropological,
political, cultural and biblical history.
List of figures
List of contributors
Preface
List of Abbreviations
INTRODUCTION
Creating Coherence and Continuity: Suggestions and Illustrations of Methods and Themes
THOMAS L. THOMPSON
Part 1 HISTORIOGRAPHY
1.1. Emic and etic historiography and tradition within various disciplines
1. Palestinian Local Historical Narrative
HAMDAN TAHA
2. Palestinian Identity: The Question of Historiography
ISSAM NASSAR
3. History of Palestine versus History of Israel? The Minimalist - Maximalist Debate
INGRID HJELM
4. De-Theologising Medieval Palestine: Corpus, Tradition and Double-Critique
JOSHUA SABIH
5. History, Curriculum and Textbooks: Reframing Palestine in the post-Oslo period NADIA NASER-NAJJAB AND ILAN PAPPE
1.2. The roles of memory and oral history in history writing
6. Oral History’s Credibility, Role and Functionality
MAHMOUD ISSA
7. The Cultural and Linguistic Background of the Naming of Objects and Agricultural Installations in Palestine
ISSAM HALAYQA
8. The Production of Alternative Knowledge: Political Participation of Palestinian Women since the 1930s: A Case Study
FAIHA ABDULHADI
Part 2 ETHNICITY, GEOGRAPHY AND POLITICS
9. The Cultural Heritage between Ethnicity and Ethical Matters
GHATTAS J. SAYEJ
10. Narratives, Nucleotides, Nationhood: The Conundrum of Demographic Continuity and Discontinuity and the Quest for Historic Legitimacy
MICHAEL NATHANSON
11. Patronage and the Political Anthropology of Ancient Palestine in the Bronze and Iron Ages
EMANUEL PFOH AND THOMAS L. THOMPSON
12. “To Be an Israelite and a Judean as I Want You to Be". Material Culture and Ethnicity during the Iron Age
HANI NUR EL-DIN
Part 3 LANDSCAPE, ARCHAEOLOGY AND MEMORY IN THE INTERFACE BETWEEN HISTORY AND TRADITION
13. Theoretical Perspectives on Landscape and Memory, and the Case of Lubya as Lieu De Memoire
BO DAHL HERMANSEN
14. Community Archaeology in Palestine: Protection, Preservation and Promotion of Archaeological Heritage Sites in Palestine
IMAN SACA
15. The Al-Nuweima Mosque: An Archaeological Perspective on Modern History
ANDREW PETERSEN
16. Archaeology as Anthropology (Bioarcheology)
ISSA SARIE
Part 4 IDEOLOGIES OF THE LAND
17. Mapping Palestine. Biblical and Rabbinic Perspectives
PHILIP DAVIES
18. Land, People, and Empire. The Bible through Palestinian Christian Eyes
MITRI RAHEB
19. Judaism’s Response to the Invention of the Homeland
SHLOMO SAND
20. The History of Israel… But what Is this Israel?: Drawing Conclusions from Recent Research into the History of Ancient Palestine
NIELS PETER LEMCHE
Index of Authors
Biography
Ingrid Hjelm is Associate Professor Emerita at the University of Copenhagen
and former Director of the Palestine History and Heritage Project
(PaHH) (2014–17). She is author of The Samaritans and Early Judaism
(2000) and Jerusalem’s Rise to Sovereignty (2004), and, with K. Whitelam,
T.L. Thompson, N.P. Lemche and Z. Muna, New Information about the
History of Ancient Palestine (Arabic; 2004); with A.K. de Hemmer Gudme
(eds.), Myths of Exile (2015); and, with T.L. Thompson (eds.), Changing Perspectives
6 and 7 (2016).
Hamdan Taha is Dean of Research and Graduate Studies at Al Istiqlal University,
Palestine, former Deputy Minister for Heritage (2012–2014) and the
Director General of the then newly established Department of Antiquities
in Palestine (1994–2012). He has directed several excavations and restoration
projects, and co-directed the joint expeditions at Tell el-Sultan, Khirbet
Bal’ama, Tell el-Mafjar, Kh. el-Mafjar and Tell Balata. He worked also as a
national coordinator of the World Heritage Program in Palestine. He is the
author of many books, field reports and scholarly articles.
Ilan Pappe is Professor of History at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies,
and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University
of Exeter. He is author of numerous books on Palestine and the modern
state of Israel, including A History of Modern Palestine (2004), The Ethnic
Cleansing of Palestine (2006), The Forgotten Palestinians (2011), The Idea of
Israel (2014) and The Biggest Prison on Earth (2017).
Thomas L. Thompson, Professor Emeritus, worked at the University of Copenhagen
from 1993 to 2009. He was Research Fellow for the Tubinger Atlas
des vorderen Orients from 1969 to 1976. He has produced more than twenty
books, five of which have been translated into Arabic, and 170 lesser works
related to the history of Palestine and biblical literature, the best known of
which are The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives (1974), The Settlement
of Palestine in the Bronze Age (1979), The Early History of the Israelite People
(1992), The Bible in History (1999), The Messiah Myth (2005) and Biblical
Narrative and Palestine’s History (2013).
