The British Museum contested a Telegraph report from this weekend, saying that it had not entirely stripped the word “Palestinian” from its wall texts in response to pressure from a pro-Israel group.
The Telegraph report stated that UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) had written to British Museum director Nicholas Cullinan, claiming that using the word Palestine in its displays of Middle Eastern art “erases historical changes and creates a false impression of continuity. Moreover, the group said, doing so risks “re-framing the origins of the Israelites and Jewish people as erroneously stemming from Palestine.”
While it remains unclear which wall texts changed, the Telegraph reported that “‘Palestinian descent’ has been changed to read ‘Canaanite descent’” in a display about the Hyksos, a Levantine people.
Asked about the changes on Sunday, a British Museum spokesperson said in a statement that “the term ‘Canaan’ is relevant for the southern Levant in the later second millennium BC” while also maintaining that the institution continues to utilize the UN’s terminology, using “‘Palestinian’ as a cultural or ethnographic identifier where appropriate.” The spokesperson said the UKLFI letter came after any changes were made.
Though the museum has not issued a release or statement since then, certain reports suggest that its leadership has continued to rebut the Telegraph report, which appears to have contained inaccuracies.
The National reported that Cullinan had called Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, and that Zomlot had “accepted the museum’s explanation,” per the report. “Attempts to cast the very name ‘Palestine’ as controversial risk contributing to a broader climate that normalises the denial of Palestinian existence,” the Palestinian embassy in the UK said in a statement to the National.
On X, art historian William Dalrymple reported that he, too, had spoken with Cullinan, who confirmed that the language used in two panels about the Levant had shifted last year. But Cullinan denied that the changes had anything to do with the UKLFI letter.
“To be honest,” Cullinan said, “the even more frustrating and concerning thing is that I knew nothing about this until yesterday and has only been explained to me this morning. I hadn’t even seen that [UK Lawyers for Israel] letter despite asking for it until this morning. I’m disgusted by the whole thing.”
