Cultural heritage conservation in conflict zones

This book pursues the impact of conflicts on the concept of cultural heritage. To what extend do conflicts transform the value and the meaning of cultural heritage. The impact of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the Holy Land's cultural heritage constitutes the main case study of this research. A comparative study has been made to understand how cultural heritage was before the Palestinian diaspora and how Palestinians and Israelis have conceptualized cultural heritage since the introduction of Zionism into Palestine. The first two chapters define cultural heritage in peacetime as well as in wartime. The methods and the motivations of targeting cultural heritage are also examined. The third chapter identifies the prewar cultural heritage in the land of Canaan/Palestine. Special attention has been given to the rise of Judaism in Canaan. This chapter draws our attention to one particular fact-that the Jewish people were an indigenous and accepted part of the social fabric in Palestine. The fourth chapter focuses mainly on how the state of Israel employ the jewish heritage in palestine to justify uprooting the indigenous inhabitants. The last chapter concerns the Palestinian attempts to conserve cultural heritage to emphasize their existence.