A painting of Lord Balfour housed at the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College was slashed by protest group Palestine Action.
The painting of Lord Balfour was made in 1914 by Philip Alexius de László inside Trinity College. The Palestine Action group specifically targeted the Lord Balfour painting, describing his declaration as the beginning of “ethnic cleansing of Palestine by promising the land away—which the British never had the right to do.”
Take a look at everyone clutching their pearls over this painting and think about what doesn’t upset them
Oh no, a painting! So much more important and relatable than children dying. That happens all the time.
/s
Edit: I’m agreeing with the above point, folks. Lives are more important than paintings. We need a lot more outrage about people dying and less about property damage.
Has this prevented any kids from dying? Or is it in addition to children dying? Can people be upset at two (or even… three!) things at the same time?
I agree with your point, but want to highlight that at no point did I suggest people can’t be upset about multiple things. No offense intended toward you personally (or anyone really), but your response now seems to be the standard reaction to shut down anyone pointing out the disparity in media/public reaction between things like people dying or being repressed and material goods being vandalized or destroyed. It’s getting better, but the theme of reporting tended to be that property damage is a tragic loss of irreplaceable treasure, while genocide was more akin to “some people went to sleep and didn’t wake up again, maybe they should have complied”.
Of course people can be upset by multiple things. When the magnitude of upset over precious but ultimately replaceable things being destroyed is greater than that for irreplaceable people being destroyed, then we have a problem.
At least that’s my take and I’m anything but infallible.
I get your point, but on the other hand, I understood your first comment as “There’s children dying, so you’re not allowed to be upset by anything lesser than that”, which is also used to shut down dissent.
Anyways, thanks for the Level-headed answer, have a good one!
Totally understandable, there’s always a risk that a quick, snappy comment conveys the wrong meaning. My wording definitely could have been better, but I’m leaving it for posterity so future generations might learn to do better.
And thanks to you too! Good conversation.
The OP is even linking to artnet because this does not seem to be a major story outside of this. I probably would have never heard about this had I not read it on lemmy. I listen to NPR on my way to work, I regularly hear about the horrors the people in Gaza are facing. So I’m not sure this characterization is fair.
But this bastard in the picture is one of the reasons of this current mess happening.
Did he intend for children to die or was he trying to give Jews a country to call their own?
Other reasons are Chinese inventing gunpowder, and Netanjahu ordering to kill children, but not all those reasons are contributing equally…
The Israeli army is retreating in fear. Now it’s a painting, next time they might smash a vase!
The thing is that the is plain useless. Nobody is going to have a change of heart because somebody slashed a painting. If anything I think it can have a slight effect on the opposite direction.
It’s also very interesting, some people defending this action and upset about Israels invasion seem very chill about Russia’s invasion…
You’re getting down voted, but you’re absolutely right. Zionists will use this as another excuse to ignore the movement, while it does nothing to help the Palestinian people.
Yeah. I think so many people just have this “it’s for a good reason”, and don’t consider if it’s useful if even positive for them.
Might have have a better impact to force them through social movement to remove the painting. Achieving that would have been a much stronger message.
Still I think most downvotes come from people that don’t like I’ve brought up Russia’s invasion as something negative.
If they punched a baby, instead, which is actually better than what’s going Gaza, would it be wrong for people to be upset about them taking it out on something that has nothing to do with the criminals they are protesting?
It’s a dumb thing they did and they are a piece of shit. But what Israel is doing is Gaza is infinitely worse. It completely reasonable and easy to hold these two positions at the same time.
Uh… Balfour definitely has something to do with Israel.
Are you arguing that this painting is to blame for this?
The person it glorifies sure seems to be
I’m trying to imagine what it’s like not able comprehend what’s going on.
No amount of destroyed paintings won’t make me care more about Palestine