The denial and distortion of Ancient Jewish History

In late May 2026, the British Museum was due to hold an event entitled “Ancient Israel and Judah in the British Museum”. Its Keeper of the Middle East Department, Dr Paul Collins, was going to expound on the history and archaeology of both ancient Jewish kingdoms through the prism of artefacts kept at the museum.

The event was to be part of the UK’s first nationwide Jewish Culture Month. Just a day before it was meant to occur, the British Museum released a press statement announcing its postponement based on the fear “that a significant proportion of registered attendees were individuals intending to deliberately disrupt the event, preventing others from participating in good faith and undermining the purpose of the programme.” They added that “this decision was made to protect the event — not to diminish it. We will continue to support Jewish Culture Month and remain committed to providing a space where history, culture and scholarship can be explored openly, respectfully and without disruption.”

Which individuals prompted this decision? It appeared to be a group called the Jewish Artists for Palestine. On their website, they described the event as “a pro-Zionist propaganda exercise” and referred to the “Gaza genocide”. Among other objections, it accused the museum of “historical obfuscation”, claiming that the term “Palestinian” — which it described as standard in academic usage — had been removed from displays and replaced with terms such as “Canaanite”, and that “Palestine” had been replaced with “Gaza and the West Bank” in parts of the Levant gallery. This, the group argued, amounted to “historical erasure”.

In effect, a lecture on societies that existed thousands of years ago was recast as a political endorsement of the modern ‘Zionist’ Israeli state allegedly carrying out ‘genocide’. The museum itself was portrayed as complicit in all this, by simply daring to use the word ‘Canaanite’- established historical terminology – over ‘Palestinian.’ This is a history the protestors didn’t want told as it didn’t fit into their ideology, so they managed successfully to get it postponed until the 11 of June, when the event finally ahead.

Debates and controversies about the Jews of the ancient world have raged forever, just as they have swirled round its other prominent societies, be it the Greeks, the Romans, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, or the Mayans. However, since the terrible atrocities of 7 October, discourse in this sphere has taken on a markedly darker and polarized tone. Not just creating an environment where a lecture on ancient Jewish history was not deemed safe to take place in the UK, but opening up a veritable Pandora’s box of antisemitic distortions – some of which are not exactly new, but have been given new vigour to swirl up in social media and general discourse.

On a broad level, the very existence and authenticity of ancient Jewish history are increasingly called into question. “The weaponisation of archaeology” was referred to by the Jewish Artists for Palestine in their list of grievances. This accusation is frequently levelled at the Israeli state. A typical example is from the website of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy in 2024: “The Israeli regime has been using archaeology for its settler colonial project and to construct a nationalist narrative of Jewish supremacy. It uses heritage appropriation as a tool to target and erase the native Palestinian presence and bait international tourists……Zionism and the Israeli institutions have used and abused the existing heritage of Palestine for its nationalist project, particularly through using “Biblical archaeology”, a concept that has allowed Europeans and then Zionists to construct a narrative of continuous presence in the “Holy Land” for their colonial objectives.” Thus, the independent historical identity of ancient Jewish civilisation is totally diminished and denied the dignity of having a reality outside of the supposed nefarious, modern machinations of Israel.

With ancient Jewish civilisational identity put to question, it is but a small step to challenge whether Jews have had any real or lasting links to the ancient region of Israel. The extent of the connection has always been part of the cut and thrust of historical debate, and no one has yet suggested that Jews weren’t there at all, but current hostile discourse has generated some warped perspectives. In an episode of ‘Palestine Declassified’ – part of a suite of programmes broadcast on the Press TV website, which is an English-language propaganda arm of the Iranian government – Professor David Miller, no stranger to antisemitic controversy, was asked if Palestine had been a Jewish state. He replied thus:

“No, I mean the way in which the Zionists present it is that there was a Jewish state there and then the Jews were all kicked out and they’ve always wanted to come back and that’s what Israel is. But of course, it’s not true. I mean there were parts of what’s now Palestine which were Jewish and which would run as effectively as something like a Jewish state… there’s no such thing as states in that period. But for example, I mean the whole area of Judea and Samaria is what the Zionists called the West Bank, but Judaea was Jewish but Samaria wasn’t. So, the whole thing is you know, rested on this historical myth that there’s this Jewish state and all they’re doing is re-establishing something which was historically there. It wasn’t. It’s completely wrong.”

Even when there is an acceptance of key figures and events from the ancient Jewish world, a process of inversion can come into play. Florence Schechter, a Green councillor for the Brownswood Ward in the borough of Hackney, posted on social media during Chanukah in 2024 about how much she admired the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucids, saying “What is going around my head this year is how a people who had their very existence banned stood up to their oppressors. Who persisted, even against great odds. A people who demanded autonomy and self-determination………. I want to be a Maccabee.” Schechter, who is herself Jewish, then referred to the “horrors” committed by the modern state of Israel, commenting: “It is a chillul hashem – a betrayal of Jewish values. Palestinians are far closer to the Maccabees than we are right now.” Thus, in her view, a line has been crossed by Israel and now modern Jews have lost the right to claim kinship with their ancient rebellious forebears.

The inversion which Shechter practises takes on even starker contours if we move further forward in time to the wars fought between the Jews and their Roman occupiers. John Wight, a writer and political commentator, claimed on the Medium website that “the notion that the Jews of ancient Galilee who rose up against Rome in the time of Josephus have any connection — ethnically, historically, spiritually, or politically — with the soldiers of the IDF currently laying waste to Gaza is false. In fact, the opposite is far closer to the truth — i.e. the Palestinian resistance is the real historical successor to this ancient Jewish rebel army.” Hamas have become the new Zealots, the new Sicarii. In this topsy-turvy world, Miller asserts in the episode of Palestine Declassified referred to above that Jesus would have been a committed Hamas supporter: “He would have been in that resistance. Whether he would have been in the armed wing or not, I think we can debate, but he certainly would have been part of the resistance to occupation.” Such a comment by Miller was further represented by the many ‘Jesus of Palestine’ memes flooding social media in the first Christmas after 7 October.

A complete divorce from Jesus’ historical milieu is being enacted. The contemporary reinvention continues with King Herod, now embodied by Benjamin Netanyahu.

If anything in this reconstituted narrative, Netanyahu, the ‘new’ Herod, is far worse than his ancient predecessor. The reverend Stephen Sizer, disciplined by the Church of England over his antisemitic postings, also featured on the above episode of Palestine Declassified and said the following: “I mean it’s ironic that you know I’ve been criticised for comparing Netanyahu with Herod who killed the little boys in Bethlehem but looking at it statistically, he [Herod] probably killed 20 to 30 little children in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. Israel’s killed thousands of Muslim and Christian children in Gaza today. So, it’s clearly genocide.”

So, by a remarkable twist of fate, Jews have become no longer welcome in their own history. Ideological arguments with antisemitic overtones would rather have discussions about the ancient past erased in the public sphere. Even when there is recognition of the significance of long-ago Jewish history, this has been hijacked and reframed by those with an animus against the modern Israeli state, claiming it for their own political purposes even while they paradoxically deny the reality of that history. For some anti-Israel activists, Jews now have just become signifiers of their own oppressors, forever carrying out ‘genocide’ and never the recipients of that oppression. Their own antique civilisation is becoming lost in a modern world of hate.