ABSTRACT
In this chapter we present the legal, ethical and professional issues of current archaeology in East Jerusalem. Some development is necessary; but most of the development in East Jerusalem answers political aims. There is no ‘pure,’ ‘scientific’ archaeology, free of power relations. The professional work of archaeologists in East Jerusalem is surrounded by a turbulent sea of unprofessional and unethical situations. This book is not written to support Palestinian claims. My aims are not support of one side, but of archaeology as a humanistic field of study and of democratic ideals. Many archaeologists and excavations in Israel are professional and ethical (the two are not disconnected), but current archaeology in East Jerusalem is not. It is an unethical, colonial archaeology, which desires everything to itself, leaving nothing to the other. There is no ‘fun’ in excavating biblical remains when just outside the excavation fence people live in poverty under a repressive Apartheid regime. ‘A professional ethic without compassion is not human and, therefore, is not ethics’ (Williams 2013:293). It is finally not a question of archaeological ethics, but of human ethics. The present archaeology in East Jerusalem is pitiless robbing of a poor men’s lamb (2 Samuel 12). It is repeating the sin of David in the City of David.
