Russia has found another way to challenge Israel, and this time the battlefield is not military, diplomatic, or economic. It is archaeological.

On July 9, 2026, the Rescue Archaeology Center of the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. The document was presented as a professional agreement devoted to the protection, study, and digital documentation of cultural heritage, yet the political meaning of the project becomes difficult to ignore once one examines who stands behind it, which sites have been selected, and how those sites are being described.

The central question is not whether ancient monuments should be preserved. They should. Nor is the problem that Palestinian institutions wish to study historical sites located under their administration. The real issue is that Russian state structures are entering one of the most sensitive historical disputes in the region and helping one side establish an international narrative in which monuments connected with biblical history, the Second Temple period, and ancient Jewish Jerusalem are presented primarily as the “cultural heritage of Palestine.”

That is not a neutral scientific position. It is a political choice.

A memorandum backed by the Russian state

The agreement was signed by Natalia Solovyova, director of the Russian Rescue Archaeology Center, and Hani al-Hayek, the Palestinian Authority’s minister of tourism and antiquities. The ceremony took place by video conference and included Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage Museum, as well as Russian diplomatic representatives.

The meeting was moderated by Timofey Bokov, head of the local office of Rossotrudnichestvo. The Russian House in Palestine later stated that it had coordinated the project and was prepared to continue supporting Russian-Palestinian cooperation in the field of cultural heritage.

That detail matters because the Russian House is not an independent cultural society or a private academic foundation. It is the local representation of Rossotrudnichestvo, the Russian federal agency responsible for cultural diplomacy and humanitarian influence abroad.

The project therefore brings together the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Hermitage Museum, Russian diplomacy, and Rossotrudnichestvo. This is not a small expedition organized by a few scholars working outside the political system. It is a state-backed Russian initiative with institutional, diplomatic, and cultural weight.

The memorandum also forms part of a much larger program called the “Digital Archive of Monuments of Africa and the Islamic World.”

The project is being implemented by the State Hermitage Museum and the Rescue Archaeology Center of the Institute for the History of Material Culture. Mikhail Piotrovsky presented it on March 25, 2026, at a meeting of Russia’s Presidential Council for Culture, after which Vladimir Putin publicly promised support.

This raises an obvious question. Why are sites connected with the Second Temple, the Temple Mount, and biblical Jericho being included in a state program devoted to “Africa and the Islamic World”?

The modern political status of a territory does not determine the historical identity of the monuments located there. Nor does current administration erase the civilizations that created those monuments centuries or millennia before the Arab conquest or the emergence of Islam.

Only two concrete sites have been named

Russian specialists have said that three or four sites may be selected for the first stage of the project according to the priorities of the Palestinian Authority. However, only two specific locations have been publicly identified.

The first is Solomon’s Pools — בריכות שלמה — south of Bethlehem.

The second is Tell es-Sultan — תל א־סולטאן, also known in Israel as Tel Jericho, תל יריחו.

Other categories, including Roman cisterns, ancient water systems, Christian churches, and Islamic structures, were mentioned more generally. They should not be confused with a confirmed initial list of selected monuments.

Both named sites have been presented in Russian and Palestinian communications as part of the “cultural heritage of Palestine.” Yet neither Solomon’s Pools nor Tell es-Sultan was created as an Islamic monument.

This distinction is not semantic.........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)