If passed, the new authority would be empowered to carry out excavations, conservation work, research, and site development, as well as to manage and restore antiquities.
By Pesach Benson, TPS
The Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee is advancing a disputed piece of legislation that would place antiquities management in Judea and Samaria under direct Israeli civilian control, a step that critics say effectively amounts to annexation in practice.
The committee, chaired by Zvi Sukkot of the Religious Zionism party, met on Monday to begin preparing the bill for its second and third readings in the Knesset plenum.
Lawmakers scheduled additional sessions through midweek in an effort to move the proposal forward quickly amid the increasing likelihood of early elections.
The bill’s sponsor, Amit Halevi of Likud, said he hopes the legislation will be finalized within days.
Speaking during the committee session, he framed the initiative as both cultural and legal in scope.
“We are doing two things,” he said. “One is creating an organized body in charge of our spiritual and cultural treasures in Judea and Samaria, and another is doing it through Israeli legislation.”
Under the proposal, authority over archaeological activity would be transferred from the Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration to a new civilian body called the “Judea and Samaria Heritage Authority.”
At present, the Israel Antiquities Authority rejected a prior request to assume responsibility for the area, leaving oversight with the Archaeology Unit operating under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which is part of the Defense Ministry framework.
Proponents argue that the Civil Administration is not equipped to deal with the challenges of preserving and excavating sites.
Critics warn this move may get all Israeli archaeology banned from international cooperation.
If passed, the new authority would be empowered to carry out excavations, conservation work, research, and site development, as well as to manage and restore antiquities.
It would also hold authority to acquire or expropriate land deemed necessary for protecting and developing archaeological and cultural heritage sites across the region.
As The Press Service of Israel reported in 2025, Israeli archaeologists find themselves effectively blacklisted by the international academic community, unable to publish findings from Judea and Samaria.
Experts told TPS-IL that the politics-driven policies of the academic archaeological world result in the erasing of biblical history.
They added that the Palestinian Authority deliberately strives to wipe out evidence of the Jewish connection to the land, imperiling sites of historical value.
Judea and Samaria contain sites fundamental to biblical archaeology.
Hebron is the burial site of biblical patriarchs and was King David’s capital city.
Shiloh is where the Tabernacle stood until King Solomon completed the First Temple.
Abraham built an altar in the area of Shechem (Nablus), while outside the city are Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, where the Hebrews invoked a series of blessings and curses after entering the Holy Land.
Nearby is Sebastia, the capital of the Israelite Kingdom, with its temples and palaces.
Judea and Samaria also contain remains from nearly every period of human history — from prehistoric settlements to Canaanite city-states, Israelite kingdoms, and the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, and Ottoman periods.
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