Israel is trying to rewrite ancient history. In Palestine, Israel has systematically destroyed ancient heritage and made colonial land grabs of archaeological sites like the ancient Palestinian town of Sebastia, near Nablus. Beyond Palestine, global institutions – including museums and universities – are at risk of aiding and abetting them in this rewriting project. Yesterday UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) announced that they had written to the British Museum to encourage them to remove references to ‘Palestine’ in the gallery panels and labels of their collections. I recognised UKLFI’s ideological mission immediately: they were trying to recruit the British Museum to their political project of erasing Palestinian history.

The reason I could identify UKLFI’s project so quickly was that a few short weeks earlier my own university had been the target of their political campaign to manufacture a pro-Israel narrative of history.

UKLFI had written to The Open University in the UK, where I work, requesting that the term “ancient Palestine” be removed from our teaching materials.

UKLFI had written to The Open University in the UK, where I work, requesting that the term “ancient Palestine” be removed from our teaching materials.

Their letter made a series of ill-informed arguments dripping with thinly veiled Zionism, including that the term ‘ancient Palestine’ is historically inaccurate to describe the region associated with the Virgin Mary (the context in which the term was being used in The Open University’s learning materials). UKLFI suggested that the use of the term ‘ancient Palestine’ might erase Jewish historical identity and create a hostile environment for Jewish students. None of this could be further from the truth.

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The term ‘ancient Palestine’ is simply the most accurate term for this region in antiquity. It was used in the 5th century BCE by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, and remains widely used in academic research including my own and that of the vast majority of scholars of the ancient world that I know.

The idea that ‘Palestine’ is a late-coming or illegitimate way to refer to this region in antiquity is a Zionist lie.

The idea that ‘Palestine’ is a late-coming or illegitimate way to refer to this region in antiquity is a Zionist lie.

It is circulated by pro-Israel organisations not because it adds anything to historical discussions of this region, but because it supports Israel’s claim that Palestinians are illegitimate and presents Jewish supremacy in the region as ancient history rather than modern invention. And it is a lie that is complicit in Israel’s genocidal project of erasing not just contemporary Palestinian life, but historical traces of the Palestinians too.

The rewriting of ancient history has always played an important role in occupation and genocide. European colonisers have often manufactured stories about ancient history to support their projects of settler colonialism. When the British coloniser Cecil Rhodes wanted to occupy Zimbabwe (which he would call Rhodesia), he sent archaeologists to the ruins of the ancient city of Great Zimbabwe. These archaeologists were responsible for manufacturing the fairytale that it was not ancient Africans who built this site, but the ancient Phoenicians. This narrative was useful to the British, who would subsequently argue that the Phoenicians were ancient Europeans whose colonial presence legitimated their own. And when France wanted to colonise Algeria it told a similar colonial story: that the French were the true legitimate occupiers of Algeria, because they were – so they said – descended from the ancient Romans who had occupied Algeria centuries earlier.

It is not surprising that Zionism, itself a project of European colonialism, should tell similar colonial fairytales about ancient history. European colonialism systemically rewrote history to justify the dehumanisation of colonised populations – especially when those colonised populations were in the majority Muslim, because of the fact that Islam began in the 7th century, after the end of the so-called ‘classical’ world. The destruction of archaeological sites in Palestine is a clear attempt to rewrite ancient history in this same vein, in order to justify Israeli occupation. But these acts of violence and destruction alone are not enough to manufacture the historical narrative required for genocide. Historians, museums and universities all function as necessary accomplices to the political project that Israel is engaging in. And they are recruited to this ideological project by organisations like UKLFI.

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Legal protections of academic freedom and freedom of speech ought to ensure the right of academics to use accurate terminology. They ought to ensure the protection of this right even in the face of political pressure coming from those for whom the facts of history are inconvenient. Israel’s attempt to rewrite history is therefore also a dangerous attack on academic freedom.

Museums, universities and other organisations will need to be alert and ready to defend academic freedom from interference by political organisations. They will need to be able to recognise the dangers that UKFLI – which has previously been under investigation for sending “vexatious and legally baseless” letters to silence support for Palestine – and other pro-Israel organisations represent.

Museums, universities and other organisations will need to be alert and ready to defend academic freedom from interference by political organisations. They will need to be able to recognise the dangers that UKFLI – which has previously been under investigation for sending “vexatious and legally baseless” letters to silence support for Palestine – and other pro-Israel organisations represent.

And this rewriting of history risks not only impeding academic freedom, but also stoking both islamophobia and antisemitism. UKLFI’s deliberate conflation of Jewishness and Zionism, evident in their claim that the use of the term ‘ancient Palestine’ might create a hostile environment for Jewish students, is dangerous for Jewish students in particular. Ancient Palestine is widely recognised as having been a multicultural, multiethnic and multireligious place. Ancient Jewish identities were part of a rich cultural network of other ancient identities and ought to be studied as such. Erasing the term ‘ancient Palestine’ or replacing the term with names like ‘Judea’ or ‘Samaria’ serves pro-Israel narratives of history, because it suggests that the idea of a solely Jewish state has existed since antiquity. But it exceptionalises ancient Jewish history and removes it from its context as an important part of the multicultural and multireligious ancient world.

The notion that a land belongs to a single racialised group – an idea known as ethnonationalism – is a key part of Israel’s ideology. But it would have been wholly alien to the inhabitants of ancient Palestine. Accurately representing this multicultural history of Palestine is not antisemitic. On the contrary, it serves as a reminder of the dangers of contemporary ethnonationalism. Denying the multiculturalism of the ancient world and rewriting the ancient world in support of ethnonationalism has been a technique frequently employed for antisemitic purposes. Nazi historians, for example, famously claimed an affinity with ancient Rome, and invented a myth of racial purity by denying Rome’s multiculturalism.

The term ‘ancient Palestine’, as many ancient historians (including Jewish and Israeli historians) have agreed, conveys the true multiculturalism of ancient Palestine. It is the best way to reject the weaponizing of ancient heritage for ethnonationalist and genocidal purposes.

The term ‘ancient Palestine’, as many ancient historians (including Jewish and Israeli historians) have agreed, conveys the true multiculturalism of ancient Palestine. It is the best way to reject the weaponizing of ancient heritage for ethnonationalist and genocidal purposes.

In her report in July 2025, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, warned that archaeology was functioning as the “ideological scaffolding” of apartheid and Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians. Institutions responsible for the public understanding of history – like universities or museums – risk contributing to this ideological scaffolding if they do not equip themselves to defend academic freedom and avoid falling victim to pressure by pro-Israel organisations. To do this, they will need to understand how Zionism is trying to rewrite ancient history to suit its own ends, just as other European colonial projects have always done. If they do not wish to be complicit in the genocide of the Palestinians, they will need to refuse to erase Palestinian history.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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