A portrait of Arthur Balfour, who signed the 1917 Declaration in favor of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, was destroyed by a Palestine Action activist inside Trinity College at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.
A shocking action so as to “end British complicity with the colonization of Palestine”. This Friday, March 8, an activist from Palestine Action, a group that presents itself as “a network dismantling British complicity with Israeli apartheid”, tore up a painting by Philip Alexius de László representing Lord Arthur James and splashed it with red paint.
While serving as British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, he signed a famous declaration in 1917 favoring the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. A document often presented as the basis for the future creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
The group condemns the “genocide” in Gaza
In a video posted on Palestine Action social media, the activist sprayed the British politician’s face with red paint “symbolizing the bloodshed of the Palestinian people since the publication of the Balfour Declaration in 1917.” She then struck with a cutter a canvas painted in 1914 and preserved by a British university.
“He handed over a Palestinian homeland – land that he himself could not hand over,” the group said in a statement.
Through its activism, Palestine Action above all wants the Israeli arms company Elbit Systems to cease its activities, particularly in Great Britain. According to the group, “Britain’s support for the continued colonization of Palestine since 1917 has not wavered”, referring to recent history and the war between the Israeli army and Palestinian Hamas in Gaza, which it describes as “genocide”.
The Palestinian Territory, home to 2.4 million people, has been the scene of a major Israeli offensive since Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.
The attack, carried out by commandos of the Palestinian Islamic Movement, killed 1,160 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official figures. Israel’s retaliatory crackdown, which has vowed to eliminate Hamas, killed 30,878 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, according to Hamas’ health ministry.
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