Palestinians call on Canada to cancel scroll exhibition
AFP
OTTAWA- The Palestinian Authority demanded this week the cancellation of an exhibition of Dead Sea Scrolls, which it said were stolen by Israel from Palestinian territories, Canadian media reported.
Top Palestinian officials called on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to step in to cancel the exhibition, which is set to open in June at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), according to the Toronto Star newspaper.
"I think it is important that Canadian institutions would be responsible and act in accordance with Canada's obligations," Taha wrote in the letter to Harper.
The museum plans a six-month showcase of 16 of the 900 manuscripts from the Dead Sea.
The scrolls, some of which are as old as the third century BC, have shed light on the earliest origins of Judaism and Christianity and are considered to be one of the greatest archaeological finds of all time.
The first fragments were discovered in arid caves along the shores of the Dead Sea by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947.
In the letter, signed by senior Palestinian government officials, the objectors argue the texts were acquired illegally after Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967.
"I'm just hearing about this issue," said ROM head William Thorsell on Thursday, according to the Star. "I do understand the Palestinians are making an issue of the ownership. But I'm quite certain the scrolls fall within the parameters of the law."
Pnina Shor, head of the artifacts treatment and conservation department at the Israel Antiquities Authority, maintains that the Jewish state is the rightful custodian of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
"As such, we have a right to exhibit them and to conserve them," he insisted, the Star said.
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