From: user7160@newsgrouper.org.invalid   
      
   brits still cucked by the joos ehh???   
      
   On 2/16/26 12:41 PM, Julian wrote:   
   > What’s in a name? Quite a bit if you’re the British Museum and the P-   
   > word is involved: ‘Palestine’. Pro-Palestinian activists are outraged –   
   > it is Monday, after all – because the museum has altered its   
   > terminology. Representatives of UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) objected   
   > to displays in the British taxpayer-funded institution giving the name   
   > ‘Palestine’ to the historical land now home to Israel, Gaza and Judea   
   > and Samaria (the West Bank). They pointed out that these territories   
   > went by various names over the centuries, including Canaan, Israel and   
   > Judah, and that using only ‘Palestine’ is a) historically inaccurate and   
   > b) plays into highly contested modern-day Palestinian political narratives.   
   >   
   > Since ‘Palestinian’ is now associated exclusively with Arabs, where a   
   > century ago it was routinely used to refer to Jews, the concern is that   
   > these displays reinforce the misconception that the land between the   
   > Mediterranean and the Jordan was home to a single continuous nation or   
   > culture that endured for centuries or even millennia. In fact, the   
   > territory repeatedly changed hands, usually as the possession or   
   > protectorate of a conquering empire, and the only extant civilisation to   
   > be an independent sovereign in this strip of hills and deserts and   
   > water-starved fields were the Jews.   
   >   
   > Anti-Zionists often downplay, ignore or even deny this part of the   
   > historical record because it debunks their claim that the Palestinians,   
   > as we understand them today, were a sovereign nation on the land until   
   > the Jews arrived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries   
   > and supplanted an indigenous people. In truth, there has been a   
   > continuous Jewish presence in the land, even following the Roman   
   > Republic’s defeat of the Hasmoneans in 63 BCE, subsequent conquest of   
   > Judea, and enslavement or expulsion of many of its Jewish citizens.   
   >   
   > We started out in Culture War of the Week, 2026, and somehow ended up   
   > halfway across the world in the time before Christ, and I don’t blame   
   > those of you who quit the tour and handed back your headphones along the   
   > way. Do people really get worked up about this stuff? They do. What’s   
   > more, they should. Our regard for the history of past civilisations is a   
   > good barometer for the regard in which we treat our own. Truth either   
   > matters or it doesn’t, and if it doesn’t, why are we bothering?   
   > Incidentally, the truth involves acknowledging that, while the   
   > propagandistic mythologies peddled by pro-Palestinian activists distort   
   > history in service of ideology, so too do those Zionist counter-   
   > narratives that attempt to write out the Arabs altogether to justify the   
   > domination or expulsion of contemporary Palestinians.   
   >   
   > In some ways, the pro-Palestinian movement is hoist by its own petard:   
   > in pushing for recognition of ‘Palestine’ as a state it has embedded the   
   > modern definition in the public consciousness, so that the historic   
   > term, highly useful for propaganda purposes among the general public,   
   > must be deployed more cautiously to guard against misrepresenting history.   
   >   
   > The British Museum has replaced some references to ‘Palestine’ and   
   > ‘Palestinian’ with ‘Canaan’ and ‘Canaanite’, but UKLFI says that   
   the   
   > work and financial cost involved mean further changes will be carried   
   > out ‘in phases over the coming years as part of the museum’s long-term   
   > “Masterplan” redevelopment’. (An unfortunate name when facing charges   
   of   
   > having erased Jews from history.)   
   >   
   > Something about this rankles, though. The ideological rewriting of   
   > history is offensive to opponents of the progressive movement, but isn’t   
   > lawfare just as objectionable, exactly the kind of cry-bully finger-   
   > wagging progressives unleash to get their way? This is the paradox of   
   > lanyard legalism: can the procedural tools of coercive progressivism –   
   > lawfare, language-policing, institutional and policy capture –   
   > legitimately be used to counter progressive ideology? Are those who long   
   > for the Before Times merely fighting to restore institutional   
   > neutrality, or are they also battling against a culture of politically   
   > mandated compliance?   
   >   
   > It’s a genuine dilemma but those troubled by it must contend with an   
   > equally legitimate, and more practical, point: a culture war in which   
   > only one side is prepared to fight isn’t a culture war, but a series of   
   > merciless onslaughts met by agonised self-restraint. Noble defeat is   
   > still defeat. Defending civilisation in the present means defending it   
   > in the past, too.   
   >   
   >   
   > Stephen Daisley   
      
      
   --   
   hi, i'm nick! let's end war 🙃   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)