RAMALLAH, West Bank — Researchers in Palestine find it difficult to get hold of the studies and archives they need. In the absence of an official center for archives of the written history of Palestine, these researchers are forced to look in the archives of other countries, if available.

Bassel al-Khayyat (a pseudonym) agrees with this assessment, as he himself resorts to British and Israeli archives in Great Britain and Israel to support his research about the Palestinian resistance during the period before the Nakba of 1948.

Khayyat, who works at a research center in Ramallah, told Al-Monitor that he has a Palestinian friend in Israel who takes photographs of documents that are hard to find in Palestine and sends them to Khayyat. This friend sometimes brings the documents with him when visiting the West Bank.

Khayyat also relies on other documents that are available on the British National Archives website — although some documents are confidential and not available to the public — and the archives of British colonial history found in universities in Britain through his friends who study there, in addition to whatever he can find online.