LONDON – A pro-Palestinian group took two sculptures of Israel’s first president from a British university in a protest marking the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, with police on Nov 3 confirming they were investigating reports of a burglary.

       “Today, Palestine Action marked 107 years since the Balfour Declaration by taking two sculptures of Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, from its display case at University of Manchester,” the protest group said in a press release.

       Greater Manchester Police said in a statement it received a report of a burglary at the north-west England university late in the evening on Nov 1.

       The local Jewish Representative Council of GM & Region community group wrote on X that “overnight, criminals from Palestine Action broke into the University, smashed the case and stole the statue of Weizmann”.

       “We urge the authorities and Home Secretary to fully proscribe Palestine Action as it is essential they face the full force of the law,” it added.

       In the Balfour Declaration, then British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour spellt out plans to form “a national home for the Jewish people” in a 1917 letter to Mr Walter Rothschild, a British politician and supporter of the idea of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

       The letter was endorsed and published by the government on Nov 2, 1917.

       Palestine Action also sprayed the London office of charity Jewish National Fund with red paint and carried out a similar protest at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre lobby group headquarters in London.

       It also collaborated with students from the University of Cambridge, where Mr Balfour was educated, to spray the university’s Institute of Manufacturing and Senate House. AFP