Know Your Enemy - Archaeology and Annexation in Palestine (w/ Jasper Nathaniel)

Matt and Sam talk to Jasper Nathaniel about the role archaeology plays both in Israel's nationalist mythology and in their annexation of Palestinian territory.

Duration: 1h 40m
Broadcast on: 10 Aug 2026
Audio Format: other

This episode begins by noting the proximity of two of the most significant events of the twentieth century, one archaeological, the other political: the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 and the founding of the modern State of Israel in 1948. What do they have to do with each other? A lot, it turns out, at least when it comes to archaeology's role in Israeli nationalism, from justifying their claim to "Judea and Samaria" to using the legal and bureaucratic aspects of protecting "heritage sites" as a way to seize territory to the draw for Christian Zionists of Israel's supposed stewardship of "the Holy Land." Throughout the conversation, we draw on our guest Jasper Nathaniel's years of reporting on these matters, and especially his heroic work documenting the brutality of Israeli settlers — and their enablers— in the West Bank.

Support Jasper's essential work by subscribing to Infinite Jaz.

Listen: Johnny Cash, The Holy Land (1968)

Sources:

Jasper Nathaniel, "In Ruins: Archaeological Warfare in the West Bank," The Drift, Dec 16, 2024

— "Israel's Archaeological Apartheid: An Update," Dec 19, 2025

Rachel Poser, "Common Ground: The Politics of Archaeology in Jerusalem," Harper's, Sept 2019

Bezalel Smotrich, "Israel's Decisive Plan," 2017

James Genn, "'Grandpa, Look What We Found': Huckabee Family Uncovers Ancient Coins in West Bank Caves," The Jerusalem Post, Jan 6, 2026

Gary Rendsburg, "The Dead Sea Scrolls," Great Courses lecture series, July 2013

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All right, welcome listeners to episode 141 of Know Your Enemy. I'm Matt Sippman, your podcast co-host, and I'm here as always with my great friend, Sam Adler Bell. Hello, Sam. Hi, Matt. I loved preparing for this episode, recording it, and I can't wait to share it, because it's such a fascinating topic and way into what's happening in Israel and Palestine. It's about archaeology, among other things, but we spend a lot of time talking about the role of archaeology in all nationalist projects, right? Like using the past to buttress nationalist claims and myths, that certainly is the case in Israel, and there's so much we could say about it, but we'll leave most of the same to our incredible guest we had for this discussion of Israel, and of course more broadly what's happening in Israel and Palestine. Jasper Nathaniel. Jasper was really great. He's a friend of ours, friend of the show, glad to have him on. Finally, many of you may be familiar with his work. He's an independent journalist, and he's the proprietor of the Infinite Jazz Substack, where he writes about life in the West Bank, about the settler movement, and about really Israel's violent and illegal project of annexation there. You've probably seen some of his videos, or you've seen his face on various YouTube shows and stuff. He's, I think, incredibly talented and courageous in the work that he's done on the ground of the West Bank. It's basically indispensable because it's not being replicated very much in the English media, so I was thrilled we had got him on to talk about this, and you know, I mean, I think he gets a lot of opportunities to talk about just the atrocities that the settler movement is committing in the West Bank and that, you know, the IDF is allowing, if not encouraging them, to commit. But I think that his writing about archaeology and the role of like heritage sites in enabling the project of annexation and territorial expansion and from Israel into the West Bank is also one of my favorite aspects of his work, and perhaps one he doesn't get to talk about as much, so I'm glad we got to. Yes, I did want to just say how much I agree with you, how grateful I am for Jasper's work. I say this in the episode too, but he is a genuinely brave person for the work he does, and I admire him for it. And yeah, archaeology is the way into these questions, topics, themes. I just had so much fun with it. I'm grateful Jasper was so generous with his time. Yeah, me too. Before we get to some housekeeping items, I do just want to underscore, check out our show notes. We'll have links to essays Jasper's written, his sub stack is Sam noted, and it'd be great if you could support his work. All right, time for some housekeeping items. As always, we're grateful to our partners at Descent. They sponsor the podcast, and one thing that means is if you subscribe to Know Your Enemy on our Patreon at patreon.com/ Know Your Enemy for $10 a month, you not only get access to all of our bonus episodes and the Know Your Enemy Discord, but you get a free digital subscription to Descent. So please consider doing that. And of course, for $5 a month, you get access to all the bonus episodes. You could spend five bucks a month on far worse things. So in these days of miracles and wonder, follow along with us. That's a very generous way to put it. Yes, please do. As always, we want to thank Jesse Breneman, our intrepid producer, as well as Will Epstein, who does the music for the podcast. Well, Samuel, should we get to it then? Yeah, let's. Here's our conversation with Jasper Nathaniel. Enjoy. [music] All right, gentlemen, let's get started. Welcome to Know Your Enemy for the first time, Jasper Nathaniel. Thanks so much for having me, guys. Improbably, our second Jasper in the span of like three or four months. Our second and last Jasper, as far as I'm concerned, I was going to say for fans of the extended Know Your Enemy universe, Jasper, Nathaniel, and I met in a Freud class taught by a friend of the show and frequent guest, Pat Blanchfield. Not just that, but you also met my father in that class. Psychoanalyst, Dr. Nathaniel, who took the class with us. Yes, this was during COVID, and so I don't know how you felt about this, Jasper, but for me and Hannah, Hannah, my girlfriend was also taking the class. That class was like a real like totem of that time for us, and we became very preoccupied about guessing about the lives of all the people in the class, and we were very interested in this very, very handsome guy and his cool father who were taking this class. We saw your little faces and we were like, "What's the

Transcription truncated.

Matt and Sam talk to Jasper Nathaniel about the role archaeology plays both in Israel's nationalist mythology and in their annexation of Palestinian territory.