It’s one thing to be passively ignorant of history, but something else entirely to refuse to study the past. Regardless of our political, ideological, and even theological beliefs, an honest review of history keeps us grounded in facts as we address the challenges of the day.

Those who cannot be honest about the past are unlikely to be forthright about the present. They try to recast history as part of an agenda to seize the future. Thus, we find efforts to tear down monuments and rewrite history books.

I was reminded of this on a trip to Israel. After visiting numerous archaeological sites, I arrived in Jericho, which is considered by many to be the world’s oldest inhabited city. I know my way around Jericho, having visited the archeological mound on previous trips. I was not, however, prepared for what I saw. I was struck by how much had changed… and not for the better.

What struck me was the site’s state of disrepair. It is the archeological remains of an old city, so in one sense, “disrepair” is the order of the day. But not like this; this was the disrepair of the site as an archeological treasure. It struck a dagger through my heart and mind.

For all its storied history, dating back literally to the dawn of recorded time, most of us know of Jericho because of its prominent place in the Book of Joshua and later references in the New Testament.

But here in Palestinian-controlled Jericho—the modern city, which surrounds the archeological mound—you find… next to nothing. If you don’t know what you are looking at, you won’t know. Signposts around the mound once explained the site’s significance in layman’s archeological terms, not biblical prose. Those had all been removed.

It felt a lot like visiting the Alamo without finding a reference to the 1836 battle—or anything else, for that matter.

It is now just a high mound of exposed ancient bricks, a cistern (if you know what you’re looking at), and a few bits of walls from interior shops or dwellings. I am told new archaeological work has essentially ground to a halt.

There is a simple and sad reason why. The Palestinian Authority’s political narrative will not tolerate any more archaeological finds substantiating the words of the Holy Bible.

This is ironic, given that nearby is Qasr al-Yahud. For Christians, this site is significant as the place where Jesus is believed to have been baptized. The old Arabic name, though, attests to something far more ancient. The name translates roughly as “The Place of the Jews.” That is an illusion to the third and fourth chapters of Joshua… where the flood waters of the Jordan dried up, allowing the people of God to enter the Promised Land and begin their conquest. (It is also the general area where Elijah was taken up on a chariot of fire to heaven.)

So, there is a site named for centuries in Arabic as the place where Joshua and the people entered the land… yet no acknowledgment today that the Jews captured Jericho in one of history’s most unique battles.

Whatever one thinks of modern Israel and the geopolitical conflict between Muslims and Jews and everyone else, all of those things should be unrelated to archaeological facts.

But here’s the political problem: The Palestinians are resting their claims to the land on the belief Jews have no meaningful historic connection to it. The controlling P.A. has decided to disallow any—any—archaeological study that might suggest Jews occupied, controlled, or otherwise conquered the land even in the ancient past.

Whatever one chooses to believe about modern Israeli statehood since 1948, or the governing arrangements in the region going forward, none of us should accept the suppression of history. Those whose geopolitical aspirations are based on rewriting history are building on the shaky foundation of lies. And nothing good will result.

Modern interest groups should argue vigorously for their competing visions of the future, but we must not allow the past to be a casualty in those battles.