A Journal of Record · Est. MMXXIV
The Complete History of the Sovereign Palestinian State
The Palestinian Historical Review is the comprehensive scholarly archive of Palestinian statehood, governance, currency, and national leadership. It is, accordingly, a short read.
Fig. 1. The complete history, shown actual size.
Tel Aviv, 1937 · Matson Collection · Library of Congress · public domain — photographed twenty-eight years after Receipt № 1, the sands of MCMIX.
The Permanent Collection
Current Exhibitions
Nine rooms of the Review, each addressing one portion of the documentary record, with the Reading Room, the Diplomatic Record, and the Enquiries Desk as annexes. Each is, in its own way, brief.1
From 1550 BCE to 1948 CE, fourteen empires ruled this land. Each kept records. The records survive. We have read them. A brisk parade follows.
Review the Parade → Room II · Political Institutions Government & StateThe registry of sovereign Palestinian heads of state, maintained to the standards of the Almanach de Gotha. The registry contains no entries. We have been waiting since MMXXIV.
Examine the Registry → Room III · Numismatic History Currency & EconomyTwenty-two currencies in 2,600 years, none of them Palestinian. The only one ever created for a territory named "Palestine" was British — and in Hebrew it said Land of Israel.
View the Catalogue → Room IV · National Biography National LeadersA portrait gallery of every sovereign Palestinian head of state, hung in chronological order. The Curator regrets the lighting in several of the rooms.
Enter the Portrait Wing → Room V · Identity & Memory Cultural HeritageWhen "Palestinian" meant Jewish. The Palestine Post is now the Jerusalem Post; the Palestine Symphony Orchestra is now the Israel Philharmonic. The Arabs' first congress resolved, in MCMXIX, that the country was "part of Arab Syria."
Explore the Record → Room VI · Material Culture Evidence GalleryFifteen archival plates of "Palestinian" material culture — the coin, the stamp, the passport, the plane, the orchestra, the newspaper, the football team. With three diagnostic exceptions, they are in Hebrew.
Enter the Exhibition → Room VII · Chronological Index Interactive TimelineForty-nine entries from 1550 BCE to the present, colour-coded by sovereign. Beneath them, the eight offers — statehood, territory, peace — scored. The score has never changed.
Walk the Corridor → Room VIII · The Search Room Document ArchivesSearch forty-seven indexed databases for a constitution, a treaty, a coin. Results are computed in real time. They have been remarkably consistent.
Search the Holdings → Room IX · Editorial About the InstituteMission, board, methodology. Our second principle: where the record is silent, we are silent. The Review is, accordingly, a quiet publication.
Read Our Mission →Docent tours of the permanent collection depart on the hour, and rejoin the Entrance Hall at seven minutes past.
There is no such thing as Palestine in history. Absolutely not.
One document. A constitution, a coin, a treaty concluded in the name of a sovereign Palestinian state before MCMXLVIII — any single item from the classes catalogued in the Archives. An expedited review track is reserved for exactly this purpose. It is not congested.
Consult Notes & Queries →