Right now in the West Bank, Palestinians live under Israeli military law. They can be detained without charge, tried in military courts with conviction rates above 96 per cent, and subjected to emergency regulations that put the occupying power beyond any real legal challenge.
Their Israeli neighbours live under civil law. Two populations, two legal systems, one territory. It’s an arrangement most people would call unjust. What most people don’t know is that Britain designed it.
During 30 years of British rule over Palestine, we created the legal architecture that still operates today – the emergency powers, the military courts, the collective punishment, the dual legal system. We built it. And when we left in 1948, we didn’t dismantle it. It was picked up and carried on.
This is all laid out, in painstaking detail, in a 400-page legal petition put together by leading KCs and historians. The evidence is taken overwhelmingly from Britain’s own archives. It is our records that tell the story – and the story is damning.
The petition was submitted to the government by the Britain Owes Palestine campaign more than six months ago. There has yet to be a government response.