Gaza's forced exodus echoes 1948 and Britain must reckon with both
Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, announced in May that the government’s ultimate aim was for large numbers of Palestinians to leave Gaza by what he called “voluntary migration”, which will proceed "at the right time and in the right manner". What is being described is a long term plan for ethnic cleansing by making conditions in Gaza intolerable. For anyone who has studied the history of Palestine, it carries the unmistakable echo of a catastrophe that has happened before.
I have spent most of my academic career studying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This conflict is made in Britain. In 1917, by a stroke of the imperial pen, the Promised Land became twice-promised: it was promised first to the Arabs and then to the Zionists. The Balfour Declaration committed the British government to support a Jewish national home in a land overwhelmingly inhabited by Palestinian Arabs - without their knowledge and without their consent.
Britain then governed Palestine for three decades, constructing a legal and administrative apparatus that privileged one community while systematically restricting the rights of another. The first British High Commissioner for Palestine was Sir Herbert Samuel, who was a Jew and an ardent Zionist. He inaugurated the policy of unrestricted Jewish immigration and land purchases that ultimately provoked the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939.
In 1948, Britain withdrew from a conflict its own policies had shaped, leaving the indigenous population without protection. In the course of the war that ensued, 750,000 Palestinians became refugees, and the name Palestine was wiped off the map. This is what the Arabs call the Nakba, the catastrophe.
In 1948, Israel carried out the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Today, Israeli officials dress up ethnic cleansing in the language of voluntary migration. But when a population has been subjected to sustained bombardment, blockade, and the systematic destruction of homes, hospitals and food supplies, no departure can be deemed voluntary. This is the forced displacement of civilians. In Zionist jargon, it is called “transfer”. Under international law, it is a war crime and a crime against humanity.
The parallel between the current war in Gaza and the 1948 war is clear. Then as now, the removal of Palestinians from their land was framed as an unfortunate consequence of conflict rather than its purpose. Then as now, Palestinians themselves were denied any meaningful say in decisions being made about their future.
It is against this backdrop that the Britain Owes Palestine campaign has submitted a 400-page legal petition to the British government documenting Britain's unlawful conduct during the Mandate period. The violence, brutality, collective punishment, arbitrary detention, and summary executions deployed by the British army to suppress the Arab Revolt are documented in harrowing detail in the report. So is the Whitehall policy that made the loss of Palestine to the Palestinians not just possible but probable.
A cross-party coalition of 45 MPs and Peers has urged the Prime Minister to respond to the petition. Eight months on, the Government has said nothing. That silence is itself a form of complicity in British crimes against the Palestinian people from 1917 to the present.
Prime Minister Starmer has said he believes in upholding international law. Legal authority on the world stage, however, demands moral consistency at home. Britain could not credibly condemn Israel’s forced displacement in Gaza and the West Bank in 2026 while refusing to acknowledge its own central role in the displacement of the Palestinians in 1948. The technologies of control refined during the Mandate, including torture, collective punishment, deportation, and the suspension of judicial oversight, did not disappear when the British Mandate reached its inglorious end. They were inherited, extended, and institutionalised by the State of Israel.
History does not repeat itself automatically. It repeats itself because those with the power to break the cycle choose not to use it. The time for Britain’s silence on the subject of Israel’s crimes in Gaza has long passed. It is time for Britain to uphold international law, to call Israel to account, and to end its own complicity in the destruction of Gaza.
Emeritus Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford and advisor to the Britain Owes Palestine campaign
