What are your opinions on the British Museum’s foreign possessions?

What are your takes on these kinds of museums that stole ancient heritage from their colonies? Should they return everything?

I ask this because people seem to be very determined on hating them but I think they forgot how unstable Middle East and Eastern Europe still are.

Did everyone forget how ISIS destroyed ancient artifacts in the Mosul Museum and blew up historical sites (like the temple of Bel, the entire city of Hatra or Nimrud and more) from Ancient Assyria and Babylonia (some dating back 3000+years) to churches and mosques from the middle ages in 2014-2015 in Iraq and Syria? I remember people praying for some statues to be replicas (which ended up not being) and thanking the French for the Cour Khorsabad in the Louvre.

Or if we started to talk about the destruction of UNESCO World Heritage sites in recent years due to the syrian civil war or the Iraqi conflicts that unfortunately never seem to end…

Egypt still does not enjoy neither of a democratic government nor of a consolidated state of peace.

Not to mention the never-ending Israel-Palestine conflict.

The whole Middle East is not a pacific region. Archaeology is a very underdeveloped discipline here when it should be at its peak due to this region’s history. Why put on risk even more world heritage that belong to everyone?

PD: I’d also like to mention I’m not european so I do not speak on the interest of any country.