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An open letter criticizes the institution for allegedly changing displays in its Middle Eastern galleries after complaints from a pro-Israel group.
More than 200 artists and cultural groups are urging the British Museum to “stop erasing Palestine” after the institution changed some wall texts in its Middle East Galleries under pressure from a pro-Israel group.
A letter addressed to the museum’s board of trustees and signed by musician and visual artist Brian Eno, among others, also criticizes the museum’s previous ties with the Israeli embassy and the oil company British Petroleum (BP), which is accused of profiting from Israeli crimes against humanity in Gaza.
While the London museum has denied reports that it has removed ‘Palestine’ from its galleries, the group UK Lawyers for Israel publicly claimed that their advocacy prompted the institution to change the display texts. In one such case, the group said, the museum replaced “Palestinian descent” with “Canaanite descent” in its Egyptian galleries after the organization requested a review of terms related to Israel.
Last summer, British legal groups accused the pro-Israel organization of “irritating and legally baseless correspondence aimed at silencing and intimidating Palestinian solidarity efforts.”
The open letter, first reported by Novaradescribed the alleged label change as part of a “broader eradication of Palestine as a term, place, people and historical reality” and accuses the museum of complicity in genocide. Artists and Culture Workers London, Jewish Artists for Palestine and Archaeologists Against Apartheid are among the group’s signatories.
In a statement to Hyperallergic Last month, the British Museum acknowledged that “some labels and maps in the Middle East galleries have been adapted to reflect ancient cultural regions,” which the institution claimed were “more relevant to the southern Levant in the later second millennium BC.”[E].”
After news of the changes to the exhibition broke, the Palestinian Forum in Britain posted an image with wall text in the museum describing the Levant region as consisting of “Jordan, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and Western Syria,” but the use of the term Palestine.
“Recent events also underscore a fundamental issue,” the new open letter reads, “that Palestinians have never consented to the plunder and removal of their material heritage, with the Museum keeping thousands of stolen Palestinian artifacts in its archives, some of which are on display at the Museum today.”
The British Museum has not yet responded Hyperallergic‘S request for comment on the open letter.
The signatories issued a list of demands, including that the museum order an expert review of labels describing historic Palestinian artifacts and apologize for hosting a private gala for the Israeli embassy last summer to celebrate the founding of the state.
“It is against this backdrop that we call on the Museum to finally end the support it has shown to the Israeli government and those profiting from the genocide in Palestine, and to begin [sic] the process of repairing the immense damage that British colonialism has inflicted on the Palestinians,” the letter concludes.
Eno, one of the best-known signatories of the letter, is a prominent figure in the pro-Palestinian movement.
This month, the artist and musician also pledged to sell an artwork, “Seeing Through to Sky” (2025), at an upcoming auction to raise money for Palestinian humanitarian aid organizations. The works of Eno and others, including Nan Goldin and Es Devlin, will be on display in a public exhibition at Hope 93 Gallery in London later this month.
