British Museum faces scrutiny over sponsor’s links to illegal Israel settlement

The British Museum is facing questions about its due diligence processes over links between the sponsor of its landmark Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, Igor Tulchinsky, and a project he is reported to have funded in an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Internal emails seen by Middle East Eye reveal that the museum appears to have been courting Tulchinsky even while he was visiting the settlement last November. Tulchinsky, the billionaire founder of US investment firm WorldQuant, was in Efrat, part of the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements southeast of Jerusalem, on 13 November to open a “therapy yurt” which he is reported to have dedicated to “Israel’s heroes”.