British Museum removes the word ‘Palestine’ from ancient displays

After complaints from a pro-Israel group, the British Museum appears to have removed the word ‘Palestine’ from ancient exhibits.

UK Lawyers for Israel complained that the term ‘Palestine’ was being used to ‘erase historical changes’ and ‘create a false impression of continuity’.

Since the complaints were received, the information placards on displays in the ancient Middle East galleries have now changed.

The group wrote: ‘The chosen terminology in the items described above implies the existence of an ancient and continuous region called Palestine.’

The region has been referred to by many different names throughout history – including Canaan, Palestine, Israel and Judea.

A spokesperson for the British Museum said they use the term ‘Palestinian’ where appropriate when referring to cultural or ethnographic identity.

They added: ‘For the Middle East galleries, for maps showing ancient cultural regions, the term ‘Canaan’ is relevant for the southern Levant in the later second millennium BC.

‘We use the UN terminology on maps that show modern boundaries, for example, Gaza, West Bank, Israel, Jordan, and refer to ‘Palestinian’ as a cultural or ethnographic identifier where appropriate.’

Israel’s half-century military occupation of Palestine and its expansion of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land have prompted widespread condemnation from countries which agree the settlements are illegal.

But Israel denies this and encourages settlers to move to the West Bank with economic perks, including tax exemptions. Palestine has fought to be an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital, but Israel views the whole city as its capital, with only the US and a handful of other countries recognising this claim.

There have been numerous attempts to negotiate peace and a ‘two-state solution’, but the boundary between the two countries remains in dispute, made more fraught by the recent three-year war.

When did Israel, as we know it today, come into existence?

After the First World War, Britain took control of the area known as Palestine after defeating the Ottoman Empire.

The land was inhabited by an Arab majority and a Jewish minority, and for a while, both groups coexisted in relative peace.

But tensions mounted when Britain took on the task of establishing a ‘national home’ for the Jewish people, issued through the Balfour Declaration in 1917.

Both the Arabs and the Jews claim the region as their ancestral home, and as more Jews arrived between the 1920s and 1940s, violence between both groups and British rule grew.

In 1947, the UN voted for Palestine to be split into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs, with Jerusalem as an international city.

In 1948, British rulers left, and Jewish leaders declared the state of Israel, which led to neighbouring Arab countries launching an attack the following day.

Around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were forced out of their homes and became refugees, and by the time the war was over in 1949, Israel controlled most of the territory.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Comments Add as preferred source