British Museum removes word ‘Palestine’ from some displays

Museum revises labelling on maps and panels, saying term used inaccurately and no longer historically neutral

Shameful – Peter

The British Museum has removed the word “Palestine” from some of its displays, saying the term was used inaccurately and is no longer historically neutral.

Maps and information panels in the museum’s ancient Middle East galleries had referred to the eastern Mediterranean coast as Palestine, with some people described as being “of Palestinian descent”.

Concerns were recently raised by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLIF), a voluntary group of solicitors, about references to “Palestine” in displays covering the ancient Levant and Egypt, which risked “obscuring the history of Israel and the Jewish people”.

In a letter to the museum’s director, Nicholas Cullinan, the group wrote: “Applying a single name – Palestine – retrospectively to the entire region, across thousands of years, erases historical changes and creates a false impression of continuity.