Arab League Chief Nabil al-Araby has called for unifying Arab efforts to retrieve the records that he claimed were stolen by colonial powers, seeking the obliteration of Arab identity and forging history.

In his speech during a ceremony by the Arab League on the Arab Document Day on Sunday, Araby said that preserving the Palestinian identity and its records is regarded central to preserving Arab identity against attempts to obliterate its features and counterfeit historical truths.

Araby added that Israel stole around 80,000 Palestinian books and manuscripts and transferred them to its national libraries.

The event was attended by several Egyptian and Arab officials, intellectuals and representatives of the International Council on Archives. It was entitled “Palestine in Arabic documents.”

“Arab countries face at this phase many serious challenges, some of which are clear through attempts to obliterate its Arab and Islamic history and heritage. In addition to Palestine, some Arab countries like Algeria, Libya and Iraq are still concerned about issues of Arab archives stolen by colonial powers. These countries seek restoring them back, as they include truths on their history and violations by colonial powers against them,” Arab said.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm