Originally published on Hypeart.com
Pro-Palestine activists have destroyed a century-old painting of former British Prime Minister, Lord Balfour. Housed at the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College, a member part of the group Palestine Action was recorded slashing and spray painting the artwork earlier today in a plea to call out “the bloodshed of the Palestinian people since the Balfour Declaration was issued,” according to the group in a statement.
Arthur James Balfour was a former politician, who served a brief stint as prime minister of the UK from 1902 to 1905. He is arguably most remembered for expressing British approval of Zionism, particularly of a Jewish homeland within Palestine, which would come to fruition decades later in 1948 through the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.
“Written in 1917, Balfour’s declaration began the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by promising the land away — which the British never had the right to do,” wrote Palestine Action via Instagram. “The British paved the way for the Nakba and trained the Zionist militia to ethnically cleanse over 750,000 Palestinians, destroy over 500 villages and massacre many families. The Nakba never stopped and the genocide today is rooted and supported by British complicity.”
Local police were quickly called on to investigate “criminal damage” to the artwork. The incident joins a long list of similar events in which climate activists have used masterpieces held in museums to galvanize more awareness to their group’s cause.
