Trump Golf Course Vandalized By Pro-Palestine Protesters

A band of pro-Palestine protesters vandalized U.S. President Donald Trump’s golf course on Scotland’s western coast Saturday.

Palestine Action said it “struck overnight to wreck the ‘Trump Turnberry’ golf course, in response to the American administration’s plans and threats to destroy, ethnically cleanse, and ‘take over’ the Palestinian Gaza Strip.”

The protesters said they painted a giant message “Gaza is not for sale” on the lawn of the 800-acre course in Turnberry, South Ayrshire. They added that they “spray painted the club house and dug up the greens including the course’s most prestigious holes — used in numerous Open Championships.”

The group posted videos and photos of the damage. “Yesterday, it was ranked #3 golf course in Europe. Today, its [sic] shut,” the group said. (RELATED: Pro-Palestinian Protesters Vandalize Statues Outside White House During Massive Protest)

The group describes itself online as a “direct action network dismantling British complicity with Israeli apartheid.” A spokesperson for the group said, “Palestine Action rejects Donald Trump’s treatment of Gaza as though it were his property to dispose of as he likes. To make that clear, we have shown him that his own property is not safe from acts of resistance. We will continue to take action against US-Israeli colonialism in the Palestinian homeland.”

A spokesperson for Trump Turnberry said the protesters’ action was a “childish, criminal act,” the BBC reported. The Scottish police confirmed to the BBC that it was investigating the incident.

Eighteen of the group’s members are already in prison in the U.K. “under counter-terror powers for allegedly costing Israel’s weapons trade £millions in damages,” according to the group.

TURNBERRY, SCOTLAND – MAY 02: Former U.S. President Donald Trump during a round of golf at his Turnberry course on May 2, 2023 in Turnberry, Scotland. (Photo by Robert Perry/Getty Images)

Trump told reporters in February that the U.S. would take over Gaza, turn it into a resort, and resettle Gazans elsewhere. The remarks sparked criticism, according to the BBC.

The U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Middle East Special Envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly attempted to clarify Trump‘s remarks, arguing that unexploded explosive devices lying amid vast swathes of rubble with no basic amenities require intervention to make Gaza habitable again.

“The fact that nobody has a realistic solution and [Trump] puts some very bold, fresh, new ideas out on the table, I don’t think should be criticized in any way,” Waltz said.

“When the president talks about cleaning it out, he talks about making it habitable,” Witkoff told reporters, according to the Middle East Eye.

Trump also posted a video appearing to show what the rebuilt Gaza would look like. The video’s co-creator, Solo Avital, told the BBC that the video was intended as satire. He and his colleague took down the viral video after it went online over concerns that it could offend the White House, but “by that time it was too late,” Avital said.