Activists distort the image of Balfour, who supported the Jewish homeland

A pro-Palestinian group was dismembered and spray-painted Century-old portrait of Arthur James Balfour At Cambridge University on Friday, they defaced a painting of the British official whose 1917 pledge to support “the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine” helped pave the way for the founding of Israel three decades later.

Palestinian Action Group He said in a statement The destruction of the image at Trinity College in Cambridge was intended to draw attention to “the blood of the Palestinian people that has been shed since the issuance of the Balfour Declaration,” especially in light of the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

A spokeswoman for Trinity College, whose alumni include King Charles III as well as Balfour himself, said in a statement on Friday that the college “regrets the damage caused to the image of Arthur James Balfour during public opening hours” and that it had informed police. . A Cambridge Police statement said officers were at the scene to investigate a report of “criminal damage”.

The Palestinian Labor Organization published a video clip of a demonstrator first spraying the painting, painted by Philip Alexius de Laszlo in 1914, with red paint and then cutting it with a sharp tool. The group's statement said that Balfour had abandoned the Palestinians' homeland — “a land that he had no right to give up” — leading to what it described as decades of oppression.

Since October 7, when Hamas militants invaded southern Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people and kidnapping 240 others, Israeli bombings and invasions have killed more than 30,000 people, according to Gaza health officials.

Defacing art has become a popular protest tactic in recent years. He is perhaps most associated with environmental activists, who targeted paintings by Van Gogh, Vermeer and Monet. This year, two women from an environmental group walked into the Louvre and threw soup on the Mona Lisa. Most of the paintings that were targeted were covered or protected in some way, and very few were damaged.

In recent weeks, pro-Palestinian protesters have targeted art in New York.

This week, a few dozen protesters disrupted the opening of a show by an Israeli artist at a gallery in Manhattan. Hypersensitivity reported. Last month, protesters interrupted a talk featuring an Israeli artist whose drawings depicting October 7 are on display at the Jewish Museum Dozens chanted, “Free Palestine!” At a demonstration at the Museum of Modern Art.