An Acquittal for the Vandal of Churchill’s Statue

The acquittal at London of a vandal, Caspar San Giorgi, who spray-painted anti-Israel political slogans on the statue of Winston Churchill at Parliament Square underscores how Britain is abandoning its heroes to defacement sans consequences. Mr. San Giorgi admits that in February he graffitied “Free Palestine,” “Stop the genocide,” “Zionist war criminal,” and “Never again is Now” on the monument to Churchill.That was not enough for a jury at Southwark Crown Court, which found Mr. San Georgi “not guilty” after he told them that “Whether you convict me or not is not too much of a concern for me. Whether I get acquitted, deported, imprisoned for years, I can be proud of having spoken about injustice.” Prosecutors alleged that his vandalism, which Downing Street called “completely abhorrent,” caused some 7,000 pounds of damage.Mr. San Georgi also told the jury that “If I had a larger canvas and more time, I would have written if Keir Starmer doesn’t come to The Hague, The Hague will come for him,” a reference to the International Criminal Court. On the same day Mr. San Giorgi defaced the statute he posted that “Churchill was a racist, a sexist, a bigot in every way” and the “Keir Starmer of his time.” We imagine that is the only time the erstwhile premier has been so compared.The dereliction in respect of Churchill brings to mind the case of the Palestine Action activist who in 2024 assaulted a portrait of Prime Minister Arthur Balfour at Trinity College, Cambridge. The painting was completed by Philip Alexius de László in 1914. The acquittal came despite video of the attack, done with a knife and red paint, being posted to social media. In 1917 Balfour had pledged Britain’s support for “a national home for the Jewish people.”Last year a spokesman for the Cambridgeshire Police declared in a statement that the case was closed and that a “thorough investigation was carried out but the investigation has now been filed pending any new information coming to light.” Trinity vows that it “will continue to cooperate with the police in the event further evidence becomes available so that the perpetrators can be brought to justice.” So far, though, crickets. Both Churchill and Balfour were champions of Zion — the former was a critical backer of the Balfour Declaration. In 1954, Churchill told an American audience that “I am a Zionist, let me make that clear. I was one of the original ones after the Balfour Declaration, and I have worked faithfully for it.” Eight years earlier, Churchill declared “I am a Zionist from the very beginning of this great experiment.”In 1952, in Churchill’s third address to a joint meeting of Congress, the future premier declared that “I rejoice to pay my tribute here to the achievements of those who have founded the Israelite State, who have defended themselves with tenacity and who offer asylum to great numbers of Jewish refugees.” He expressed a hope for a renewal of “friendly relations with the Arab world,” without which, he warned, “misery might follow all.” Britain’s failure to defend the honor of Balfour and Churchill — two titans of British history — comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham is wheeling on the Jewish state. Last week His Majesty’s government announced sanctions against Israel. Those punitive measures come amid a ghastly spike of antisemitism, not least at the National Health Service. The failure to hold to account those who ravage Britain’s past bodes ominously for its future.

An Acquittal for the Vandal of Churchill’s Statue

An Acquittal for the Vandal of Churchill’s Statue

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