An exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, of the Dead Sea Scrolls, provided and sponsored by the Israeli Antiquities Authority is the subject of diplomatic moves by Jordan. The Government of Jordan has requested that Canadian Government seize the scrolls presently in Toronto which “Jordan claims were illegally taken by Israel in 1967.”
At the heart of the issue is an international agreement signed in 1954. Toronto’s Globe and Mail reports:
Summoning the Canadian chargé d'affaires in Amman two weeks ago, Jordan cited the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, to which both Jordan and Canada are signatories, in asking Canada to take custody of the scrolls.
Jordan claims Israel acted illegally in 1967 when it took the scrolls from a museum in east Jerusalem, which Israel seized from Jordan during the Six-Day War and subsequently occupied. The Hague Convention, which is concerned with safeguarding cultural property during wartime, requires each signatory “to take into its custody cultural property imported into its territory either directly or indirectly from any occupied territory. This shall either be effected automatically upon the importation of the property or, failing this, at the request of the authorities of that territory.”
This means Canada must act, says Jordan. “The Government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan would be grateful if the Government of Canada would confirm … whether it is prepared to assume its international legal responsibility, and the means by which it intends to do so,” it wrote.
Canada has not responded positively to the request, but the action by the Jordanians probably spells the end of any traveling exhibits from Israel, without some prior guarantee that the objects will be safely returned to the IAA.
The action by Jordan is not a denial of the Jewish character of the Scrolls, but rather who really owns the material.
