Bernard Spiegal

In Part One, I look at Israel’s sustained and wide-ranging mission – for mission it is – to erase all and every trace of Palestinian identity, history and presence in the land between the river and the sea.

I focus on Israel’s approach to archaeology, education and tourism as three exemplars of Israel’s eliminatory purpose. The subliminal propaganda message here being Palestinians, being (purportedly) effectively absent in the past, have no entitlement to a future.

Part Two looks at the process and structures of erasure closer to home, here in the UK. Centre stage is taken by UKLFI (UK Lawyers for Israel) a scurrilous body if ever there was one.

Rid us of these people

The Jewish settler-colonists could not abide the land of Palestine as it was and which they coveted to reside in and own. This land was, and is now still, alien and resistant, refusing to accord naturally with the dreams and fantasies of its colonising usurpers – those European Jews turned Zionist. 

Thus, the first and enduring task of the usurpers was to wrench the land, its contents, its history, along with its indigenous people, out of itself. Out of its own history and irrefutable presence. To create, not a terra nullius, but a contrived, tendentious history, a governing justificatory story, as part of a wider process designed to root the European intruders, by way of dispossession,  into what they felt was mis-allocated Palestinian soil.

The task the European Jews set themselves was formidable indeed. All around were the all-too-tangible manifestations of a people’s presence, and a past that contradicted the colonisers’ dreams and fantasies. That contradiction needed to be countered. An alternative reality created.

Craving legitimacy

A settler-colonising entity always craves legitimacy.  The method for this to be achieved is erasure: not only the physical erasure of the indigenous population, but also, and importantly, cultural erasure, historical erasure, language erasure – the need to negate Palestinian forms of life, past and present. As a consequence, Israel suffers from a congenital existential itch: it needs forever to be nagging the Palestinian earth – though the Zionist denies that classification – in search of archaeological proof of Jewish presence 2000/3000 years ago.  Finds that demonstrate other people’s presence are ignored or their significance downgraded.  As Burak Elmal in TRT World puts it:

Israel is a country built on myths. Zionism has revolved around the claim of being the original, sole inhabitants of Palestinian territories. This notion, derived from biblical texts and echoed by Israeli leaders…stands in clear contradiction with historical realities. Since facts on the ground contradict the founding myths of Israel, the Jewish leaders systematically erase history to perpetuate the myth of “A land without a people for a people without a land.” One method employed involves the manipulation of archaeological findings to create the impression of an ancient land waiting for its people. This fabricated narrative, replete with altered names and dates, is one of the key tactics serving Israel’s occupation agenda.

In the same publication, David Shutz adds:

With roughly 6,000 archaeological sites in the occupied West Bank, nearly every Palestinian village inhabits antiquity. Archaeology carries as much meaning for the future as the past, but as Israel advances its annexation, it is about erasing history — stripping away every non-Jewish layer; excising Palestinians from their past — in clear violation of international law, which forbids an occupying power from appropriating land or cultural heritage.

Unabated hostility

 Israel has an unabated hostility to the very idea of Palestine and Palestinians. It cannot abide to be confronted by the evidence of a rooted historical, yet living culture. And so, when confronted with evidence of that culture, it must remove it from sight. Remove it even from the possibility of memory. Between Oct 2023–Jan 2026, based on UNESCO’s verified assessments and reporting on the ground Israel forces:

• Damaged: 150+ sites (as of Jan 2026).
• Composition: The verified damage includes 14 religious sites, 115 buildings of historical/artistic interest, 3 depositories of cultural property, 9 monuments, 1 museum, and 8 archaeological sites.

  Distorted teaching

The Israeli education system is directed to the same purpose. A 2022 article in the Institute of Palestine Studies highlighted how:

Recently, Israel’s Education Ministry ordered the removal of any content in Jerusalem textbooks that they claim incited violence. Such content they includes [sic] any references to the Palestinian flag, the key that symbolizes the Palestinian refugee experience, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and poetry verses about Israeli checkpoints. Israel threatened to revoke licenses if schools didn’t abide by the curriculum standards. Palestinian parents protested the “Israelization” of textbooks that seek to erase details of Palestinian history and identity from textbooks. The censorship in textbooks reflects control over the dominant narrative and is rooted in politics.

Nurit Peled-Elhanan, [Professor of language and education] discusses in Israeli textbooks. Israeli textbooks dehumanize Palestinians by erasing them from the texts entirely or presenting them as primitive or violent. In addition, textbooks categorize Palestinians as a problem and a threat to the settler state.

Tourism

Tourism is critical to the Israeli economy. But it is also a vehicle for promoting an Israel-controlled narrative that denies and denigrates the Palestinian presence in ‘Eretz Yisroel’, the Land of Israel as the Jewish state would have it. Essentially, tourism in Israel is a propaganda vehicle. As Edward Said, quoted in a BDS article, set out:

 Zionists actively removed Palestine and Palestinians from the historical record through tourism predicated on selective archaeology and orientalist depictions of Arabs and Palestinians. In other words, archaeology was a tool of legitimation tied fundamentally to touristic and communal recreation…

Israel’s continued utilization of biblical narratives that exclude Palestinians in official guides and tours is especially visible in Jerusalem, the epicenter of religious tourism. Israeli tour guides in Jerusalem particularly target Christian and Jewish visitors, with itineraries and site descriptions that often exclusively highlight Judeo-Christian histories.

In Part Two I look at UKLFI (UK Lawyers for Israel), a scurrilous body dedicated, to an almost fanatical degree, to the erasure of the very idea of Palestine.