The British Museum willingly chose to hold an Israeli event and lists Palestinian artefacts as Israeli. 

Investigations by MEE show that the British Museum purposefully lied about why it chose to host the event, actively deceiving its staff and the general public. The Museum’s websites also list Palestinian artefacts as Israeli.

Despite publicly claiming that the British Museum had no say in a decision to host an event for the Israeli embassy, FOI by Middle East Eye reveals that ‘the museum did not hold any legal advice or policy documents to support the claim, indicating that it did have a choice about whether or not to host the event’. 

Staff members from the museum were purposely kept in the dark, and lied to about the concealed event held on the 13th May 2025 by management. 

Additionally, on their website, they list Palestinian artifacts as also being from/ found in Israel. 

Palestinian artefacts found after the Balfour declaration in ‘Israel’ have been labelled as being from Israel, erasing Palestinian history. Despite these stolen artifacts being from before 1948, they label them as ‘found/acquired in Israel, found/acquired Palestine (historic).

Whilst yes, these Palestinian artifacts were found in Israel since its formation – this is only because there is no recognised country of Palestine since their colonisation.

These are Palestinian artifacts not Israeli artifacts, as before 1948 Israel was not a country. Palestine is not a ‘historic state’ Palestine is a state and deserves to be recognised for its history – without Israel stealing that too.

It is clear that The British Museum has taken a stance. After all, it has held stolen and looted artefacts for hundreds of years – refusing to return them to their original countries. 

But The British Museum is not shy of controversies as they also have a  partnership with BP, and has even named a lecture theatre after the planet destroying oil company. 

Choosing to hold an Israeli event attended by Nigel Farage, Tzipi Hotovely, Kemi Badenoch, GB News journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer, and Jimmy Carr, is a clear decision. This event celebrated an ‘Israeli’ statehood built on the  Nakba and upheld today by the genocide of over 186,000 dead Palestinians. 

The British Museum then went on to claim that this was a commercial event – no different to any other activities held by the museum. But this is far from the truth. The British Museum is actively upholding and supporting zionist colonial ideology.