The erasure of Palestinian cultural legacy by British Museum

A considerable number of persons have gathered outside the British Museum in London; however, they are not planning to visit the British Museum, but to protest its editing of history.

They removed anything from ancient Palestine and from the current history of Palestine.

So I looked around the area of Jericho, where they got some artifact from Jericho.

Jericho is one of the cities in Palestine that dates back to 11,000 years BC, before Christ, and they moved that.

There is no mention of Palestine whatsoever.

Samer Jaber, Writer and Activist

• British Museum removes Palestine from exhibit labels
  

  British Museum removes Palestine from exhibit labels

  Here

The removal followed lobbying earlier this month by the Zionist pressure group, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI).

It targeted museum labels covering the period 1700 to 1500 BC, because they described the eastern Mediterranean coast as Palestine and refer to the artifacts as being of Palestinian descent.

Those references have now been replaced with Canaan and Canaanite descent. Museum officials say the edits were made for historical accuracy.

Historians and activists here and around the world are pushing back.

Why are they suddenly deciding to be accurate now, while we are in the midst of the genocide?

It's not about historical accuracy. It is all about pressure from their funding, from the lobbyists, and its part of genocide.

They know that a lot of these artifacts come from the area of Palestine.

Protestor 01

• Criticism directed at British Museum for removing references to 'Palestine' from displays
  

  Criticism directed at British Museum for removing references to 'Palestine' from displays

  The British Museum has removed references to Palestine from its ancient Middle East displays, a move condemned by scholars and activists.

If they really wanted accuracy, they would have added the other name; instead, they substituted the other names for Palestine. So that blatantly erases Palestine as a continuous historical term for that region.

And why are they doing that?

Because, as it has been said many times, whoever controls the past controls the future.

Protestor 02

Writers and scholars say this is not an isolated curatorial choice, but part of a broader political project, one that seeks to erase Palestine, not only from today's maps but also from the past.

They also say this is another aspect of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians; an attempt to erase not only people in the present, but also people in the past.

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And by capitulating to pressure and intimidation from Pro-Zionist groups, working on behalf of the Israeli regime to erase Palestinians, the British Museum, or any other institution for that matter, runs the risk of being complicit in that genocide.

Israel was created in 1948, nearly eight decades on, it's still not recognized by nearly 30 countries, and this latest Zionist attempt to stake a claim to the ancient past, activists say, is the logic of ethno nationalism, meaning a state that is very modern, trying to manufacture an ancient antiquity for itself.

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