On Saturday 11 December, Sabeel in partnership with the Pontifical Mission and the Jerusalem Research Institute held a conference in Ramallah about Palestinian history from a Christian perspective. Fifteen scholars presented their research, and over 120 academics attended the conference.
Recent studies about the Palestinian curriculum found that there is no reference to the history of Palestine from the 1st century to the 7th century, until the arrival of Islam. This period of Palestinian history has been also neglected by history textbooks used by Israeli public schools. Israeli textbooks cover the history of the Kingdom of David and then jump to the history of Zionism.
We hope that the research papers will be available to research centers and that students and others will benefit from them. Sabeel, the Pontifical Mission, and the Jerusalem Research Institute will be organizing a series of conferences and meetings to see how the community uses the research.