A lawsuit filed against UK for crimes against humanity in Palestine

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
4 Jul 2023 15:33
1 Shares

A British-Palestinian academician files a lawsuit against the UK on charges of crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian people during the Occupation/Mandate period lasting from 1917 until 1948.

A British soldier aims a machine gun in Al-Quds during the British colonial occupation of Palestine. (AFP)

A Palestinian-British academician specializing in International Relations and Political Communication and the Director of the European Centre for the Study of Extremism in Cambridge in the UK, Makram Khoury-Machool, filed a lawsuit against the UK on charges of crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian people during the country's colonial occupation of Palestine.

In a press release, Khoury-Machool urged the Court in London to summon the British Prime Minister before the court to answer to all the charges.

Britain's atrocities carried out in Palestine between 02.11.1917 and 14.05.1948 included the following crimes: murder, torture, collective punishment, forcible expulsion of the population, and acts intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

All of the aforementioned were deemed crimes under Customary International Law as accepted in the Nuremberg Tribunal.

The Witness Statement, which was attached to the court application, also detailed specific incidents of the above crimes and gave an indication of the conduct of the British occupation forces who committed, supervised, or ordered the commission of these crimes.

The plaintiff indicated that the content of the case refers to the following:

1- The evidence contained in the witness statement clearly demonstrates the aforementioned incidents of crimes against humanity;

2- A statement (statement of the witness; that is, Makram Khoury - Machool) that the legislation issued by the British authorities caused or allowed some to commit these crimes;

3- The witness statement outlined policies, such as "shoot to kill", adopted by the British authorities;

4. The witness statement cited documents of systematic torture committed by the British occupation (mandate) authorities;

5. All offenses set out in the action and detailed in the witness statement are crimes against humanity contrary to customary international law which is automatically incorporated into the domestic law of the United Kingdom.

"When we commemorated the 99th year of the issuance of the Balfour Declaration in preparation for the centenary anniversary (exactly on the 16th of December 2016 in London), we had launched the "Palestine 100 Initiative" specifically for the renewed engagement with the colonial root-cause which took place at the beginning of the century-long Palestinian Catastrophe. In the run-up to the occasion, we determined to disentangle and deconstruct the Balfour file. Therefore, at this launch, we held an evening of publicity in London the capital of the British Empire where the Balfour Declaration (Letter) to the Zionist movement was issued," the Palestinian-British academician said.

"Whilst one of the speakers, Baroness Tonge, apologized on behalf of her family and supporters to the Palestinian people, we also demanded, within the framework of our holding Britain its historical, legal and moral responsibilities, three types of decisions to be adopted by the UK government: The issuance of an apology, the payment of compensations and adopting political legal restoration to be led by Britain in order to implement international law in the case of Palestine," he continued.

“We believe that eliminating any step from these steps would be naive, incomplete, or deceptive." Prof. Khoury-Machool added, stressing that “since then, we started developing an integrative global campaign that includes: 1. confronting the denial of the Nakba; 2. presenting a global document called the “Nakba Declaration” for distribution, adoption, and hanging on the wall; and 3. a campaign to pass resolutions in international parliaments recognizing the Nakba and setting an annual Nakba Day."

In this context, Khoury-Machool concluded, “Using open sources, we harness our knowledge and work openly in accordance with British and international law, and we are fully aware that our path will be bumpy. However, this will not deter us from advancing toward this just and moral endeavor as our Palestinian people have been at the receiving end of the greatest brutal crimes and collectively suffering the most heinous injustice in modern history for over a century. We shall work relentlessly until justice is being served."