Higher Resolution Satellite Imagery of Israel and Palestine: Reassessing the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment

Since 1997, the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment (KBA) to the 1997 U.S. National Defense Authorization Act has limited the availability of high-resolution satellite imagery over Israel and Palestine. Although this law only applies to the United States of America, as this country dominates the commercial market for satellite imagery, its impact is global. Since 2012, the KBA has become increasingly anachronistic as non-U.S. satellite firms, utilising increasingly sophisticated satellite technologies, have begun retailing high-resolution imagery of Israel and Palestine. This major shift has, however, largely gone unrecognised because the application of the KBA has become institutionalised in the commercial satellite imagery market. Nevertheless, the removal of these practical restrictions offers a major opportunity for all forms of scientific remote sensing analysis, whether for archaeological research as undertaken by the authors of this article, as well as for geographers, humanitarian organisations or others interested in landscape and settlement change across Israel and Palestine. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.