‘Biblification’ in the Service of Colonialism: Jerusalem in Nineteenth‐century Photography

Photography presented Palestine as a biblical site most relevant to Europe. It highlighted the presence of minorities (Christian or Jewish) who might need protection and who had close ties to Europe; and it presented the rest of the inhabitants as a mass of backward and uncivilised individuals. The images that invaded European and American homes contributed to the shaping in the European mind of an image of Palestine as a dream land, or to use Doumani’s words, ‘waiting to be reclaimed both spiritually and physically