Activists deface portrait of Balfour, who supported the Jewish homeland

A pro-Palestinian group has been chopping and spraying an ancient portrait of Arthur James Balfour at the University of Cambridge, where on Friday he defaced a painting of the British official whose pledge of support in 1917 for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” helped pave the way for the creation of Israel three decades later.

The group Palestine Action, said in a statement that the destruction of the portrait in Trinity College, Cambridge, was intended to draw attention to “the bloodshed of the Palestinian people since the Balfour Declaration was issued”, especially in light of the current conflict in Gaza.

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

Palestine Action posted a video of a protester first spraying the portrait, painted in 1914 by Philip Alexius de László, with red paint and then cutting it with a sharp object. The group’s statement said Balfour had given away the Palestinians’ homeland — “a land that was not his to give away” — indicative of what it described as decades of oppression.

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

Insulting art has become a popular protest tactic in recent years. It is perhaps most closely associated with environmentalists, who have focused on paintings by Van Gogh, Vermeer and Monet. This year, two women from an environmental group entered the Louvre and threw soup at 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, several dozen protesters disrupted the opening of an exhibition by an Israeli artist at a Manhattan gallery. Hyperallergic reported. Last month, protesters interrupted a conversation with an Israeli artist whose drawings depicting October 7 are on display at the Jewish Museum and dozens sang “Free Palestine” during a demonstration at the Museum of Modern Art.