A police force has ended its investigation into a pro-Palestine protester who attacked a historic British painting housed in Cambridge University.
Protesters from the Palestine Action group destroyed the painting by Philip Alexius de László of Lord Arthur James Balfour inside Trinity College on March 8, 2024.
The group targeted the painting, claiming that it symbolised the “bloodshed of the Palestinian people since the Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917”.
A year later, Cambridgeshire Police has now confirmed that no further action will be taken.
The painting was targeted by an activist last year
X/@pal_actionA spokesperson for the force said: “A thorough investigation was carried out but the investigation has now been filed pending any new information coming to light.”
The college said in a statement that it “continues to condemn this act of vandalism in the strongest terms”.
“Trinity College will continue to cooperate with the police in the event further evidence becomes available so that the perpetrators can be brought to justice.”
It confirmed that the 1914 portrait is currently undergoing restoration.
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Lord Balfour was the Foreign Secretary who signed a letter known as the Balfour Declaration
Wikimedia Commons
Lord Balfour was the Foreign Secretary who signed a letter known as the Balfour Declaration - a statement which announced Britain’s support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
Following the vandalism, the group said: “Palestine Action ruined a 1914 painting by Philip Alexius de László inside Trinity College, University of Cambridge, of Lord Arthur James Balfour - the colonial administrator and signatory of the Balfour Declaration.”
Last November, pro-Palestine protesters smashed a glass cabinet at the University of Manchester and stole two busts of what they believed to be Israel’s first president.
Activists believed that had taken sculptures of Chaim Weizmann to mark the 107th anniversary of the signing of the Balfour Declaration.
Last November, pro-Palestine protesters smashed a glass cabinet at the University of Manchester and stole two busts of what they believed to be Israel’s first president
X @Pal_actionThe group claimed that Weizman “secured the Balfour Declaration, a British pledge written 107 years ago, which began the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by signing the land away”.
It added that Arthur James Balfour, the foreign secretary who signed the November 1917 letter, was “lobbied” by Weizmann into “assisting the Zionist colonisation of Palestine”.
However, it soon emerged that one of the busts abducted by the group was of Professor Harold Dixon - a chemist who taught at the university from 1886 to 1922.
After the stunt, Palestine Action showed the busts defaced with red graffiti reading “Smash Zionism”.
Further images showed the stolen statues wearing keffiyehs - traditional Palestinian headscarves.
