Police investigate vandalism of portrait by activists

Police are investigating an incident of vandalism at Cambridge University which saw two pro-Palestine protesters spray paint on then slash a portrait of former Conservative Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour.

On 8 March the group Palestine Action posted a video online of an unidentified person defacing the 1914 painting, which was on display at Trinity College.

Sally Davies, Master of Trinity College, said in a statement: “I am shocked by [the] attack in our college on our painting. I condemn this act of vandalism. We are cooperating with the police to bring the perpetrators to justice.”

Palestine Action said in an online statement: “Arthur Balfour, then UK Foreign Secretary, issued a declaration [in 1917] which promised to build ‘a national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine, where the majority of the indigenous population were not Jewish.

"He gave away the Palestinians’ homeland – a land that wasn’t his to give away. Britain’s support for the continued colonisation of Palestine hasn’t wavered since 1917.”

Others have interpreted Balfour's declaration differently. The full declaration states that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.