A British legal group has accused Encyclopaedia Britannica of erasing Israel from its children’s educational materials, alleging that entries on the Britannica Kids website misrepresent Middle Eastern history and geography.
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) said on Jan. 25 that it sent a letter to the publisher pointing out that several entries describe the entire region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as “Palestine,” omitting any reference to the modern State of Israel. The group said maps on the site shade all of Israel and the Palestinian territories as “Palestine,” creating “a picture in which Israel does not exist at all.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica, one of the world’s most authoritative encyclopedias, used by children, published a children’s map in which Israel was erased and replaced with “Palestine.”
This is the dream of anti-Israel activists: “from the river to the sea,” with no trace of Israel.… pic.twitter.com/Wk9YHGNUWU— יוסף חדאד – Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) February 1, 2026
The organization argued that some articles apply the term “Palestine” to ancient eras when the name did not historically exist. According to UKLFI, the Romans introduced the term Syria Palaestina after the Jewish Bar Kochba revolt in the second century CE, and using it for earlier biblical periods distorts the historical record.
Caroline Turner, UKLFI’s director, said the materials risk presenting modern political positions as historical fact. “Educational content for children should clarify history, not confuse it,” she said, calling for “urgent review and correction” of the entries and maps.