A Palestinian Organization Works to Preserve Sites in the West Bank in the Midst of War

Abstract

was filled again-this time with a line of youngsters, one to each step of the stone staircase around the inside wall of the pool, passing guffahs, the ubiquitous Near Eastern dirt carriers, full of debris and trash to their elders standing above. A few weeks later, the scene moved to the town of Beitin, Biblical Bethel, where lines of workers from the local community repaired the retaining walls, removed litter from the site and shored up the deteriorating Hellenistic tower at the site. The unexpected element of this venture is that it is an experiment in preserving sites in a war zone. Tanks rolling by very close to where he is working have not deterred Adel Yahyeh, Director of the Palestinian Association for Cultural Exchange (PACE), from mobilizing the people of the nearby towns-to clean up and repair damage to archaeological sites. has continued into modern times with only a few brief hiatuses. It is revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims as the place where Abraham built an altar, Jacob wrestled with the angel and Jeroboam established an important sanctuary to rival Jerusalem within the northern Kingdom of Israel. In more recent times the site was the location for a large Byzantine monastery, which was restored by Crusaders and later turned into a mosque. Gibeon (Al-Jib) is famous as the location where Joshua made the sun stand still and where Saul's and David's men fought. The water system at Gibeon, which is one of the few remains visible today, is mentioned numerous times in the Bible. The Babylonians destroyed the city, but it revived in the Roman/Byzantine period. The village near the site today dates from Ottoman times. Bethel and Gibeon are among a group of sites on the West Bank that have received the benefit of preservation efforts from PACE a Palestinian nongovernmental organization. The first step of these projects was to lay the ground for the work in the