The British Museum removed the terms “Palestine”, “Palestinian” and “Israelite occupation” from its displays in direct response to months of lobbying in 2024, a Middle East Eye investigation has found.
In February 2026, the museum defended its decision to alter some displays, saying that “audience testing” showed the term “Palestine” to be “no longer meaningful”.
However, a new disclosure by the museum to MEE, in response to a freedom of information request, confirms that no such testing was carried out, nor any visitor research related to the term “Palestine”.
MEE analysed two sets of heavily redacted internal emails and cross-referenced them with online complaints to identify some of the activists and public figures who lobbied the museum.
Complainants include a former Daily Mail showbiz editor, a prominent historian and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, a pro-Israel Jewish community organisation which recently partnered with the museum on events marking Jewish Culture Month.