War on History: Gaza's Erased Heritage
Mainstream reports, like those from the Associated Press, are now discovering that Israel's two-year military offensive in Gaza has not only killed “over 72,000 Palestinians” but also pulverized centuries of heritage. Muneer Elbaz, a Palestinian heritage consultant, recounts the ruin of the Great Omari Mosque, a site steeped in history, where Byzantine churches once stood, now reduced to rubble.
This, we are told, is merely an unfortunate consequence of war, an “uncertain ceasefire” now muffling the devastation. Curiously, the narrative neglects to mention that cultural destruction by occupying forces is not a novel phenomenon, nor is it an accident. From the systematic razing of 500+ Palestinian villages during the 1948 Nakba to the deliberate targeting of cultural institutions in Iraq
in 2003, the erasure of heritage serves a clear purpose: to sever a people from their past and future. The Israeli military’s claims of Hamas assets near sites, if true, serve as a convenient pretext for actions that UNESCO now confirms have damaged at least 150 sites, effectively whitewashing a strategy of memory annihilation. One might wonder why the world’s self-proclaimed guardians of history
raise alarms only after the fact, framing this as a tragic side-effect rather than a foundational tactic of imperial conquest. While Palestinians scramble to salvage fragments of their past, the architects of this destruction face no accountability, having received a staggering $3.8 billion annually in U.S. military aid, ensuring their military operations proceed unimpeded by concerns for ancient