What’s in a name? Quite a bit if you’re the British Museum and the P-word is involved: ‘Palestine’. Pro-Palestinian activists are outraged – it is Monday, after all – because the museum has altered its terminology. Representatives of UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) objected to displays in the British taxpayer-funded institution giving the name ‘Palestine’ to the historical land now home to Israel, Gaza and Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). They pointed out that these territories went by various names over the centuries, including Canaan, Israel and Judah, and that using only ‘Palestine’ is a) historically inaccurate and b) plays into highly contested modern-day Palestinian political narratives. 

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Since ‘Palestinian’ is now associated exclusively with Arabs, where a century ago it was routinely used to refer to Jews, the concern is that these displays reinforce the misconception that the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan was home to a single continuous nation or culture that endured for........

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