Ethan Bronner reports Museum Offers Gray Gaza a View of Its Dazzling Past
It may sound like the indulgence of a well-fed man fleeing the misery around him. But when Jawdat N. Khoudary opens the first museum of archaeology in Gaza this summer it will be a form of Palestinian patriotism, showing how this increasingly poor and isolated coastal strip ruled by the Islamists of Hamas was once a thriving multicultural crossroad.
Bronner, of course, reports on how Khoudray perseveres and thrives against many obstacles, mostly Israeli.
History offers not only legitimacy, of course, but also a framework for coping with the present. Gaza is under an Israeli and international siege aimed at weakening Hamas, widely viewed in the West as a terrorist group. But this is not the first time Gazans have faced a squeeze.
“Gaza has suffered more than most cities,” Mr. Khoudary noted. “There was the siege of Alexander the Great and of the Persians and of the British. At the end of the day this siege will be a footnote.”
After taking us through the problems with acquiring the necessary artifacts for the museum, Bronner reports on an irony.
Mr. Khoudary said he had visited the Israel Museum and hoped that one day some of the Gaza collection could come back here “after we have a qualified government and the capability to protect the heritage of Gaza.†He said Dr. Dothan “did us a favor because it would all be gone or destroyed today.â€
Of course we know from Joseph’s tomb and the Temple Mount how good the Palestinians are at preserving antiquities. Still my suspicion that there are elements of Gaza’s history that Mr Khoudry won’t be publicizing.
The history of Jews in Gaza. (h/t Elder of Ziyon)
During the first ceasefire of the 1948 War, Egyptian forces regularly sniped at Kfar Darom. Two days before the ceasefire collapses altogether, David Ben Gurion orders Kfar Darom to be abandoned, due to an insufficient number of soldiers and arms, and so the kibbutz is destroyed by the Egyptian army without resistance. Map
The members of Kfar Darom found Bnei Darom, a new kibbutz East of Ashdod.
It serves an another reminder that the principle of inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force is applied only when said acquisition is made by Israel, even in the course of defending itself.
Crossposted at Soccer Dad.
