UNC Charlotte’s Mount Zion Colonial Project

[This article was written by A Concerned Palestinian Student and edited by the SINN Working Group]

In late December of 2008, Gaza suffered violent bombardment by the Israeli occupation under the guise of ‘attacking Hamas terrorists’ (a refrain surely familiar to the reader). Before Israel’s ceasefire, nearly 1,400 Palestinians were killed either directly by bombs or succumbing to their injuries often related to Israel’s illegal use of white phosphorus chemical weapons. In the same year UNC Charlotte commenced its first archaeological excavation projects in Mount Zion, a hill located outside of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, headed by Professors Shimon Gibson and James D. Tabor(who retired last year). UNC Charlotte prides itself on being “the only non-Israeli university with license to dig in Jerusalem,” which did not raise any alarm bells for the faculty involved.

Israel has been widely criticized for misrepresenting and even falsifying archaeological discoveries to legitimize its present occupation. Anthropologist Peige Desjarlais states in her journal dealing with the excavations of Mount Zion, that Israel, since 1967, has actively ignored any archaeological evidence of a “non-Jewish history,” and that the occupation of East Jerusalem led to the removal of the Palestinian Archaeological Museum and its replacement by the Israeli Antiquities Association, which works to keep the narrative within Israel’s grasp. Journalist Najwah M. Shahwan of The Daily Sabah has also found that the Israeli Civil Administration employs its own archaeologist to illegally (under international law) conduct excavations in the West Bank without any proper oversight, leading to the forced evictions of Palestinians from their land and the theft of artifacts within the Occupied Palestinian Territories. 

  Israel’s well-documented misuse and falsification of archaeological evidence aside, forced evictions of Palestinians are a common consequence of these excavations, as per the above paragraph. These evictions and the uprooting of Palestinian land have worsened as a result of Israel’s planned archaeological park, particularly within the Palestinian community of Silwan, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem just six minutes away from the Zion Gate, which is particularly threatened and affected by expulsions. The archaeological park includes a cable car network stretching from West Jerusalem across Mount Zion to East Jerusalem, through the Silwan neighborhood. This network has severely impacted the pipeline systems and uprooted the agricultural landscape and there are plans to make the area predominantly Jewish. Essentially, the archaeological park’s ultimate goal is to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people from the area of Silwan and is even recognized as destructive by the European Union. 

At best, UNC Charlotte is conducting its Dig Mount Zion Project in ignorance of Israel’s attempts at ethnic cleansing. At worst, and more likely, UNC Charlotte is actively aiding the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian community and roots. Dr. Shimon Gibson, one of the heads of the Mount Zion excavations, is well known for his archaeological excavations of the Middle East, primarily in Israel. According to UNC Charlotte’s website, Dr. Gibson is mentioned to have worked as the Assistant Director of the Excavations and Surveys Department in the Israeli Antiquities Association between 1996 and 1999, and he worked directly with the Mount Zion Project shortly thereafter.

The other (now retired) professor who led this excavation project is Dr. James D. Tabor, who has taken to his Twitter account to share his personal opinions regarding the current genocide in Palestine. As of writing this, his most recent Tweet is announcing his march to Washington D.C. to stand in solidarity with Israel and against Hamas, the liberation fighters of Gaza (and as of editing he is celebrating this idyllic gathering of Zionists which didn’t leave a mess or deface “our buildings” suggesting that the government works for them and not for us. This much is true, we must admit). In scrolling through more of his Tweets, Tabor has been posting and reposting Israeli propaganda since October 7th, such as a retweet of how Hamas is solely to blame for the state which Gaza is currently in, actively ignoring the Israeli occupation and genocide of Palestine that has been ongoing for the past 75 years.

Someone with interests in Israel through work relations and someone who has publicized his solidarity with Israel whilst ignoring its role in the genocide against Palestinians are (were, in Tabor’s case) the two educators in charge of leading these Mount Zion archaeological excavations.

 The area where UNC Charlotte is conducting this archaeological excavation is “one block away from the Old City of Jerusalem,” or six minutes away from the village of Silwan, and some of the projects involve excavating the Suba Cave—once a Palestinian village prior to Israel’s violent expulsion of the native Palestinian population. UNC Charlotte’s website on this project also directs you to a “Giving” tab in case you want to donate specifically to the archaeological park which is forcing Palestinians out of their land. 

In any case, the question is no longer the extent to which UNC Charlotte is responsible or complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians; the educators’ heavily Zionist approaches, the excavation’s proximity to the areas that are being uprooted, and the option to monetarily fund Israel’s project which is actively expelling the Palestinians are all enough to hold UNC Charlotte directly accountable for said expulsion. The Dig Mount Zion Project is textbook colonialism, funded in part by students with no ties to the reality of Israel and Palestine. Now the question becomes what are anti-Zionist students going to do about it?