The latest report that Israel has not prosecuted perpetrators of killings of Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of this decade is a stark indictment of justice, accountability, and the rules-based international order. Just last month, ten Palestinian civilians were killed in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers and police forces, including a mother, father, and their two young children, who were shot in the head while returning home from a shopping trip.
However, what this report reveals is not an exceptional incident, but rather the latest manifestation of a familiar and deeply damaging pattern: violence perpetrated against the Palestinian people by an occupying power, followed by silence, delay, and a lack of accountability.
This pattern has a disturbing precedent in Britain's own experience during its occupation of Palestine between 1918 and 1948. During the Arab Revolt between 1936 and 1939, British authorities not only responded to unrest but also established a legal and military framework that legitimized collective punishment, arbitrary detention, and the use of coercive force, while restricting access to courts. Thus, the law was not used to curb violence, but to justify it. The result was a system that allowed for abuses and impunity, much like what we see today.
Darkest Day
One of the clearest and most heinous examples of this is the Bassa massacre in September 1938, where there is strong evidence that the British army committed a massacre against approximately 50 Palestinian Christians and Muslims, in retaliation for a roadside bomb explosion. This incident is one of the most egregious facts uncovered from that period.
Therefore, the "Britain Owes Palestine" campaign comes at a critical time. The campaign, in cooperation with human rights lawyers and historians, submitted a 400-page legal petition to the government documenting alleged unlawful acts and systematic violations during that period.
This petition is not an attempt to exchange historical accusations, but rather a complex legal and moral case that asserts that Britain's conduct in Palestine was itself unlawful, and that the legacy of that conduct continues to contribute to shaping what is described as genocide and other violations of international law ongoing in Gaza and the West Bank today.
The petition explains how Britain occupied Palestine, supported the Balfour Declaration, deprived the Arab Palestinian majority of effective self-governance, and contributed to entrenching a political system in which demographic change and coercive control became normalized.
It then argues that the emergency laws used to suppress the Arab Revolt made violence and collective punishment formally "legal," while simultaneously allowing unlawful coercion to occur without accountability by denying individuals access to courts. The petition describes this as "rule by law" rather than "rule of law," and states that the system was a legal military rule, where military power superseded legal protection and judicial oversight.
This is not merely a historical critique; Britain's methods in Palestine contributed to creating a legacy of violence whose effects were not limited to the Mandate period. The tools of oppression, such as collective punishment, home demolitions, punitive searches, coercive interrogation, and impunity, were made in Britain, left in Palestine, and are still in use today.
Official Apology
Accordingly, the campaign demands more than mere general expressions of concern from the British government. It demands research into unpublished archives, a full public response, recognition of unlawful acts, an official apology in Parliament, and serious consideration of reparations and other forms of accountability. These are not symbolic steps, but the minimum required from a state that claims to uphold international law, transparency, and historical accountability. Britain has long prided itself on being a nation that champions justice, human rights, and fairness, principles that shape our identity today. Therefore, it is time for us to uphold these values, honor our national ideals, and atone for the mistakes of the past, so that we can move forward as a nation with integrity.
I recently joined a cross-party group of 45 MPs and members of the House of Lords and signed an open letter urging the Prime Minister to respond to the petition and issue an official apology acknowledging Britain's historical role. Even six months after its submission, the government has yet to provide a response.
Britain cannot credibly speak about upholding international law in the Middle East while simultaneously refusing to examine its role in shaping the conditions that made such violations possible. If impunity is tolerated in the present, it is because it was normalized in the past. If history is repeating itself in the West Bank, Britain has a duty not only to acknowledge this but to bear its historical responsibility for facilitating it.
The question is not whether Britain bears responsibility for decades of violence in Palestine, but whether it will finally acknowledge it.
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As settler violence in the West Bank continues without accountability, Britain must hold itself accountable for the legacy it left behind