Russia integrated the Palestinian Authority (PA) into a major cultural heritage program July 9. The PA will now contribute to Russia’s Digital Archive of African and Islamic World Monuments project. The Russian Academy of Sciences plans to send a team in October to the West Bank historic sites for “preserving and protecting cultural heritage.” But this is about far more than preservation work. This is about geopolitics, cultural diplomacy and undermining a key Western country.

Russian state media claim the project will create digital records of monuments “under threat of destruction.” Natalia Solovyova, the project’s head archaeologist, claimed the West Bank “is a hotspot [of conflict], and the monuments are suffering. The history is so rich that we must not of course allow it to be destroyed, rewritten, demolished or wiped from memory.”

Without naming names, it’s clear the Russians are referring to Israel.

This not token support. The academy plans to use geodetic technology and drones to survey Palestinian land. Israel controls the West Bank’s borders. Solovyova acknowledged in an interview Israel wouldn’t let this project go forward. She admitted the team will pretend to be tourists and lie to Israeli authorities.

One example of the world accusing Israel of destroying heritage happened in November last year. Israel announced it was taking control of the archaeological remains of the West Bank town of Sebastia. One resident of Sebastia told the Guardian that Israel’s actions were “a violation of the history and the heritage of Palestine.”

To many, “Sebastia” may not sound immediately recognizable. The reader may be more familiar with its biblical name, “Samaria.” In the ninth and eighth centuries b.c., it was the capital of the Kingdom of Israel. It features prominently in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.

Israel plans to develop it into a tourist site. Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu said the plan “is to breathe new life into the site and make it an attraction” to “strengthen the connection between the people, their heritage and their country.”

By the time the Holy Land became part of the Muslim world, Samaria was a small town of little importance. Hardly anything is standing from that period. Samaria’s archaeological heritage isn’t Muslim; it is Israelite. That is precisely why Palestinian activists don’t like development projects like this. It is the Palestinians, not the Israelis, wiping history from memory.

Similar disputes surround West Bank archaeological areas like Hebron, Jericho and Bethlehem. Anybody with basic biblical understanding should know these places have strong Israelite heritage. Many Palestinian activists even claim that Jesus was Palestinian—never mind that Jesus had a Hebrew name, the New Testament calls Him the “King of the Jews,” His biblical genealogy goes back to King David and that the name “Palestine” didn’t even exist until about a century after the crucifixion.

This is the context of Russia’s project to document West Bank monuments. For the PA, it’s not enough to let the international press demonize biblical archaeology. It is recruiting the resources of a nuclear superpower to rewrite the Bible out of the Holy Land’s history.

Yet perhaps it is fitting the PA recruited Russia for this purpose. President Vladimir Putin is quite experienced in historical revisionism. Despite a Ukrainian language existing for centuries, he claims a Ukrainian nation never existed. Russia is guilty of many major acts of vandalism on historic sites in Ukraine. As Russian troops withdrew from Kherson in 2022, they took with them about 10,000 pieces of the Kherson Art Museum’s 14,000-strong collection. Even in Russia, Putin’s government hounds groups that document Soviet-era atrocities.

Russia, contrary to its claim of being a Christian safe haven, is essentially declaring war on the Bible.

Pro-Palestinian activists like to support whitewashing the Holy Land’s biblical heritage. Whether they realize it or not, they are agreeing with Vladimir Putin. They claim they are standing up for human rights and preserving history. They are instead aligning with one of the most egregious human rights violators. They are siding with an international campaign to blot out history and heritage.

This worldview affects more than mere piles of Middle Eastern rubble. “The Hebrew Bible is one of the foundations of Judeo-Christian tradition and Western culture in general,” Andrew Miiller wrote in our April issue, “so anyone who hates the Jews and rejects this foundation ends up rejecting civilization itself. … Ultimately, anti-Semitism is not about racial bigotry against Abraham’s descendants. It is about hatred for the biblical precepts upon which Western civilization was built.”

This campaign to undermine biblical heritage is far more organized than many realize. It has some powerful backers. And it demands the Bible’s supporters be at least just as organized. Our editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s reprint article “Archaeology Thunders: ‘Behold Your God!’” explains why biblical archaeology is so important and what is at stake.