Associate Professor at the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the Arab American University, Dr. Dalal Iriqat, published a research article titled “Legacy of the British Mandate: Eliminating The Palestinian Right to Self-Determination” in the prestigious academic journal Middle East Policy, which is considered the most attended by decision-makers in the world.
Dr. Iriqat pointed out that the research article addressed how international law was used to oppress Palestinians, and granted a privilege to establish the “Jewish State of Israel”. It also proves the vision of the legacy of the British Mandate in thwarting the right of Palestinian self-determination at the present time through “Israel’s” use of the army in civil administration, digital surveillance, and the right-wing agenda to annex the West Bank, and the permanent war in Gaza.
In this paper, Dr. Iriqkat argues that Palestine has never historically enjoyed self-rule as a state, and that the practices of the far-right government in Israel in its open war of genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip are rooted in settler colonialism facilitated by the British Mandate, 1922-1948. This period was the first and last time in modern history that Palestinian Arabs and Jews were administered as a single political entity, even though on radically unequal terms, denying the Palestinian people the right to self-determination guaranteed by international law, and demonstrating the historical role of the Mandate in supporting the sustainability of the Jewish state at the expense of Palestinian rights.
