Overview
- The Palestinian ambassador to the UK filed a formal complaint to the Foreign Office urging the British Museum to restore the word “Palestinian” in gallery texts and said he declined a tour that offered no concrete change.
- The museum says it uses “Canaan” for late second‑millennium BC maps of the southern Levant, follows UN terms for modern borders, and still uses “Palestinian” where appropriate, rejecting claims of political motive.
- Photographs published in news reports show labels that no longer use “Palestine,” and an FOI response obtained by Unredacted shows staff cited audience emails and posts by high‑profile historians on X when justifying changes.
- Coverage links the edits to lobbying by UK Lawyers for Israel, which argued to the museum that using “Palestine” on ancient displays creates a false sense of continuity that erases Israelite and Judean history.
- Specific labels in ancient Egypt and Phoenician sections now read “Canaan” or “Canaanite descent,” a shift some scholars dispute on historical grounds, while separate reports tie similar changes at other UK institutions to UKLFI pressure.