Now, Dig This

Western interest in the archeological excavations at Tel Mardikh, northern Syria, is part of a sinister Zionist plot against the Arabs of Palestine, according to a Moscow Radio broadcast monitored here. The radio’s Arabic service criticized Western newspapers for suggesting that the newly-found city of Ebla, with its archive of 15,000 cuneiform tablets, had been “since the pre-Talmud era the center of a vast Jewish empire and that the Arab states began to emerge only after that empire had declined.”

The broadcast was described as a paper presented to the Palestinian-Russian society at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow by a young scientist, Valery Yemelyanov. It accused the “guardians of international Zionism” of using archaeology to show “the inevitability of the establishment of the State of Israel and the swallowing up of Palestine”.

It repeated one of the hoariest myths of Arab propaganda, that the Israeli Knesset bears an inscription from the Old Testament which says “This is your land O Israel, from the great Egyptian river to the great Euphrates”. However, the land of Palestine itself “even in its most ancient strata, indicates that it was not the historic homeland of the Jews,” the paper said.

That was why the leaders of international Zionism were now trying to prevent the publication of the true contents of the Ebla secrets, Moscow Radio said. They had even bought the exclusive rights to publish the text which the Italian scholars had previously read in order to “falsify the information as they wish”

Continuing, the broadcast report noted that “Soviet scientists specializing in Palestinian studies were able to discover evidence which allows for the establishment of the Arab Bedouin origin of the language of Ebla. . .” These scientists considered it their duty “to participate actively in the struggle against Zionist falsification of scientific data, and in exposing the base ambitions of international Zionism in the Arabs’ land of origin.” Moscow Radio said.