Why Palestinians will not be mourning the Queen’s death

Whilst it seems the world is at a prolonged standstill mourning the death of Britain’s longest reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, her death serves as a harrowing reminder to Palestinians of the unspoken barbarity they experienced at the hands of the British Monarchy.

In recent years the British Royal Family have desperately attempted to appear impartial when it comes to the topic of Palestine, but even their ill-attempts of impartiality are just as deplorable as their undeniable historical responsibility for the ongoing mass colonisation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

In 2008, former Israeli Prime Minister and President, Shimon Peres, responsible for the Qana Massacre in Lebanon, was awarded an honorary knighthood from the Queen. Less than a decade later in 2016, Prince Charles attended Shimon Peres’s Israeli state funeral in Jerusalem.

''Britain had an irrefutable role in creating the state of Israel, and equally in the mass colonisation, ethnic cleansing and exodus of Palestinians that necessitated it. The Queen’s grandson, Prince William, visited Israel to celebrate the centenary of the Balfour Declaration which was decreed by former British foreign secretary Lord Arthur Balfour in 1917, promising the land of Palestine to be made into an Jewish-settler state.''

Even whilst walking around occupied Palestine the connection between Israel and the royal family is visibly indisputable. Prince Phillip’s mother, Princess Alice, is buried in the Church of Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem, despite her passing away in Buckingham Palace. A few yards away from Princess Alice’s grave you will find King George Street, a former Palestinian street renamed after Israel occupied Jerusalem, in honour of the Queen’s father, King George VI, for his contribution to the founding of the Israeli state.

Britain had an irrefutable role in creating the state of Israel, and equally in the mass colonisation, ethnic cleansing and exodus of Palestinians that necessitated it. The Queen’s grandson, Prince William, visited Israel to celebrate the centenary of the Balfour Declaration which was decreed by former British foreign secretary Lord Arthur Balfour in 1917, promising the land of Palestine to be made into an Jewish-settler state.

The declaration, smothered in imperialist entitlement, is better summarised in the words of late Palestinian-American academic Edward Said as, “made by a European power…about a non-European territory…in a flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority resident in that territory”. Three years after the Balfour Declaration was decreed, the British Mandate of Palestine abruptly began in 1920. At the behest of King George VI’s leadership, Palestine witnessed some of its darkest days in modern history.

The British Mandate paved the way for the creation of Israel, through the British Royal Air Force (RAF) bombing Palestinian villages, disbanding Palestinian political parties and deporting its leaders, and disarming Palestinian resistance groups with the use of public execution as a means to deter Palestinians from bearing arms. Britain ensured it opened the gates of Palestine to both Jewish settlers and violent Zionist militia’s wanting to colonise Palestine, by rendering the indigenous Palestinian population as dismembered, leaderless and defenceless.

There is a strong argument to be made that British Mandate Forces were just as complicit in the Nakba as the Zionist militia’s orchestrating it, if not to say they openly colluded in Palestine’s ethnic cleansing. For example, the forced expulsion of Palestinians from the Palestinian city of Tiberias in 1948 was facilitated by British forces, as was the bloody expulsion of over 30,000 Palestinians from Haifa under the leadership of British General Hugh Stockwell.

British Mandate forces used Palestine’s railways to import more Jewish settlers into Palestine, whilst at the same time turning a blind eye to the massacres being committed by those settlers against Palestinians. In the final six weeks of the British Mandate, British forces had gathered intelligence on dozens of massacres against Palestinians that were about to take place, yet let them happen. The British Chief of Police of Jerusalem was just a few kilometres away from Deir Yassin when he had received intelligence of the massacre about to take place, yet did nothing to stop it.

The Deir Yassin massacre is referred to today as one of the bloodiest days in Palestine’s history, where Zionist militia’s mutilated, raped and murdered over 107 Palestinians, including women and children.

The impacts of British imperialism on Palestine are stark in relevance when languishing over the Queen’s 70 year-long reign.

In the 1930s, British colonial officer Sir Charles Tegart had designed Camp 1391 as one of 62 prisons and ‘Arab Investigation Centres’ designed to contain growing civil unrest against the British Mandate in Palestine. These ‘interrogation centres’ were used by the British to interrogate, torture and execute Palestinian political leaders and figures who they deemed to be involved the Arab Revolt in 1936-1939.

Dubbed as ‘Israel’s Guantanamo’, the clandestine Israeli prison where Palestinian prisoners are routinely subject to torture, was airbrushed from modern Israeli maps in attempt to keep its existence and its activities secret. It was only in 2003 when Gad Kroizer, an Israeli university lecturer, was researching old police buildings belonging to the Palestine Police Force (A British Colonial Police Service), when he came across an 80 year-old map. Through this map, he discovered 62 such buildings still existed, with one of them wiped off modern Israeli maps completely.

These buildings bear witness to the barbarous and merciless conduct of British colonial police towards Palestinians, with torture including beatings until Palestinians were unable to walk, being burnt with boiling oil, having dogs set upon them, special instruments being used to extract fingernails, using electric shocks, and extrajudicial executions.

In recent years Camp 1391 has been reported as being even worse than Guantanamo Bay, as whilst the Red Cross has access to the notorious off-shore American detention centre, it has never been allowed to visit Camp 1391, nor has any other international organisation. Even members of the Israeli Knesset have been denied access to it by Israeli courts. Practically all the information about the facility comes from the testimonies of the few prisoners who have survived.

Indeed, Camp 1391 was built by the British to oppress Palestinians then handed over to Israelis to sustain that oppression.

Under the British Mandate and with its wholehearted cooperation, the early Zionist movement was able to lay the groundwork to create its settler colonial state in Palestine. Israeli parliament, laws, its uncodified constitution, its military, and its violence towards Palestinians all bear remnants of British influence. The Israeli brutality of Camp 1391 serves as testament to the British brutality that preceded it. These are the many reasons why Palestinian’s will not be mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Farrah Koutteineh is head of Public & Legal Relations at the London-based Palestinian Return Centre, and is also the founder of KEY48 - a voluntary collective calling for the immediate right of return of over 7.2 million Palestinian refugees. Koutteineh is also a political activist focusing on intersectional activism including, the Decolonise Palestine movement, indigenous peoples rights, anti-establishment movement, women’s rights and climate justice.

Follow her on Twitter and Instagram: @key48return

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.