The contempt that far-left protesters show for historical artifacts, specifically priceless works of art, has always been sickening, but now has just gotten despicable.
Picking up where the insufferable climate protesters left off, a group of anti-Israel activists at the University of Cambridge in England destroyed a priceless 1914 painting of Arthur James Balfour by artist Philip Alexius de László.
Posting a video of the incident to their account, Palestine Action, on the social media platform X, the protesters spray painted red paint on the painting and then slashed it without any hint of shame.
BREAKING: Palestine Action spray and slash a historic painting of Lord Balfour in Trinity College, University of Cambridge.
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. pic.twitter.com/CGmh8GadQG
— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) March 8, 2024
The reason for this destruction, they claimed, was to protest the 1917 Balfour Declaration which, in their words “began the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by promising the land away — which the British never had the right to do.”
A spokeswoman for Trinity College at Cambridge released a statement saying that Cambridge “regrets the damage caused to a portrait of Arthur James Balfour during public opening hours,” according to The New York Times.
The statement said police were notified of the incident.
Now, as The Times noted, anyone who’s seen pictures or footage of climate protesters in recent years knows this is not a new method of protesting.
The difference, however, is that the paintings attacked, like Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Johannes Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring, had protective coverings and either suffered minimal damage or no damage at all.
This time, however, these useless protesters extensively damaged a priceless painting, filmed that destruction and uploaded it to X, condemning the views of the dead man depicted with all the righteous indignation of an Old Testament prophet.
What do these protesters destroying works of art think they’re going to accomplish?
They achieve notoriety, sure, but most people in the world who aren’t zealots of their cause won’t be convinced by a video of self-righteous liberals defacing works of art.
These protesters don’t want to debate, and they don’t want to argue.
So why do they scream at people, obstruct traffic and destroy priceless works of art?
They just want to use thuggish tactics to intimidate and destroy.
Of course, this is the kind of protesting encouraged and enabled by progressives, from harassing Supreme Court justices in their homes, to gluing themselves to museum pieces.
In encouraging these kinds of protests, however, what many progressive lawmakers, like, say, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, don’t realize is that they’re playing with fire.
As AOC herself saw last weekend, and as Biden saw on his way to Thursday’s State of the Union address, these progressive foot soldiers will eventually turn on their handlers on a dime.
And those same lawmakers won’t receive any sympathy when that does happen.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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