In Ruins

Archaeological Warfare in the West Bank (Published in The Drift, Issue 14)

Read here.

Hi everyone,

I have a new essay out in The Drift, Issue 14—available online now and coming to print soon—that I’ve been reporting, researching, and writing since January. You can also see/hear me talk about it on The Majority Report via YouTube (beginning at 42:30) or podcast (starting at 39:45). And I’ll be sharing related photos and videos on Instagram and Twitter in the coming days and weeks.

As a reminder, I do this work at a high personal cost, so, as always, I’d be grateful if you’d share it across your networks.

The story takes place primarily in Sebastia, one of the West Bank’s most archaeologically rich towns. The local Palestinian community of about 4,000 is struggling to survive an intensifying siege by settlers, soldiers, and state actors who insist Sebastia’s ruins prove it is actually “Samaria,” the ancient capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel.

On the surface, this essay explores Israel’s weaponization of archaeology in the West Bank, but it reveals something deeper: how a nation founded on ethnonationalism inevitably forges its institutions into tools for oppression, displacement, and ethnic cleansing.

The narrative weaves together multiple threads: archaeology’s central role in Israel’s history, “biblical Disneylands,” municipal sabotage under the guise of “protecting Jewish heritage,” and settlers preparing to “fight to the death” to reclaim their “ancient capital.” It documents political and everyday violence, including new details about the 2023 murder of a Palestinian teenager, a shooting that took place while I was in town, and my own confrontation with belligerent Israeli soldiers. It shows local defiance: teenagers standing up to the IDF, children facing trauma through laughter and play, and a Palestinian mayor’s Sisyphean struggle to maintain his town’s most basic civic functions. Finally, it examines a crucial development that emerged over the course of my reporting and has gone almost entirely uncovered by the international press: two new policy initiatives—spearheaded by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and disguised as modest antiquities law—that have opened a circuitous bureaucratic pathway for Israel to annex the West Bank.

I write in this piece that with “the world’s focus on Israel’s multi-front war across the Middle East and its continued destruction of Gaza—a place with relatively little religious significance for Jews—the most extreme right-wing cabinet ministers in Israel’s history have kept their eyes on the true prize: ‘Judea and Samaria’” [the biblical term for the West Bank]. If Trump’s campaign promises and cabinet picks are any indication, U.S. support for Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank will only grow stronger. I hope people (and the media) start paying closer attention to what’s happening here before it’s too late.

Please read and share this piece both with those already engaged in these issues and, more importantly, with people in your life who may still be reluctant to confront Israel’s actions and broader agenda in Palestine. (Here is my tweet about it if you are the type that tweets.) The details in this story—many of which I witnessed firsthand, and every one of them rigorously fact-checked— make these realities impossible to ignore.

Jasper

PS—I want to extend my deepest thanks to the incredibly talented and dedicated editors and fact-checkers at The Drift: Rebecca Panovka, Kiara Barrow, Tarpley Hitt, Lyra Walsh Fuchs, Thayer Anderson, Jordan Cutler-Tietjen, Clare Sestanovich, and everyone else involved. Above all, I’m grateful to the people of Sebastia, who welcomed me into their community and trusted me to tell their stories.

Sebastia.