SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: The Zionists have now turned their attention towards deleting the very name, Palestine, from the historical record.

Ghada Karmi: ‘The Zionists have now turned their attention towards deleting the very name, Palestine, from the historical record. Last December, the Open University was pressured into removing ‘Ancient Palestine’ from its humanities teaching module. The Zionist group called UK Lawyers for Israel, which forced the amendment, claimed that using the name, ‘ancient Palestine’, created a ‘hostile or offensive’ learning environment for Jewish and Israeli students. UK Lawyers for Israel has also been active in pressuring the British Museum to do the same, citing the need for what they termed ‘historical accuracy’. In February the Museum reportedly reduced references to ‘Palestine’ in its Middle East and Egypt galleries, replacing them with terms like, ‘The Levant’, or ‘Canaan’, for the period 2000-300 BC. The Museum’s director explained that the name, Palestine, was no longer ‘historically neutral’. Much as the Zionists wish it, the name of Palestine has endured for 4,000 years and cannot be deleted at the whim of charlatans for political ends. I devote a specific section to the name, Palestine, in my forthcoming book, ‘A Short History of Palestine’ (Verso). This is a quote from Section I, chapter 1: “A variety of ancient names for Palestine eventually gave way to the Philistine designation after the 12th century BC, from which time Palestine was the only name for the country…. If we had had at our disposal histories of Palestine, Zionist disinformation would easily have been refuted. But they are few and far between. Mine is one, and Nur Masalha’s Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History (Zed, 2018) is another, but hardly any more exist in English today. I remember growing up in England after 1948, when the name of Palestine vanished and was eclipsed by ‘Israel’. Slowly we re-emerged in the 1970s as Palestinians from Palestine. We will not be deleted again.’ ghadakarmi.substack.com/p/israel-delet

10:29 PM · Apr 11, 2026