In April 1920, the Supreme Council of the Allies put the Middle East under the guardianship of two colonial powers of the time, Britain and France. The representatives of the British Mandate favored Jewish immigration and supported the formation of Zionist military brigades. The Palestinian national movement in the hands of the Palestinian bourgeoisie opposed quite ineffective resistance. Internal rivalries and the fear of notables to lose their prerogatives in the case of direct confrontation with the mandatory power significantly weakened the movement. However, the popular resistance against the English power and the Zionist settlers appeared during regular demonstrations demanding the cessation of Jewish immigration and the abrogation of the Balfour Declaration. The purchase of land to Arab landowning, to whom the land was primarily a subject of speculation, by the European and American Zionist organizations (Jewish National Fund, Jewish Agency …) resulted in the expulsion of Palestinian farmers in sharecropping following customary law.

The Zionist organizations built settlements (agriculturales and militaries) and exploited the land, usually in a collective way (kibbutz). In 1929, a revolt blazed throughout Palestine. From 1933, the European anti-Semitism that culminated tragically, caused a massive support of the Jews of Central Europe (to whom European Western countries closed doors) to the Zionist movement. The Palestinian struggle to free themselves, stop expanding Jewish immigration and land expropriation culminated in the Great Palestinian uprising of 1936-1939. The reaction of the Zionist organizations was violent and the British repression bloody: 5000 dead on the Arab side and 500 on the Jewish side. Most members of the Palestinian political elite were arrested and forced into exile. Representing 10% of the population of Palestine in 1917, the Jewish population was 28% in 1939.

The conflict between Jews and Palestinians attenuated during World War II, then resumed in 1945. The horrors of the Holocaust in Europe caused the worldwide sympathy for the cause of European Jews. While Britain still refused to accept 100,000 Jewish survivors to Palestine, many survivors of the Nazi camps were able to enter the country illegally. The Zionist attack against the King David Hotel (91 died on July 22, 1946), which is the bloodiest attack against the British during their mandate, marks the beginning of the civil war. Palestinian society could not resist facing the organization of the Yishuv and the power of Zionist militias: 750,000 Palestinians of the territories conquered by Israel were deported (an-Nakbah) to Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria (58 refugee camps) during the civil war between 1947 and 1949.

Fatah (Palestinian National Liberation Movement), founded clandestinely in 1959 by young Palestinian intellectuals disappointed with the Panarabism, started the armed struggle from bases in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon in 1965. After the occupation of the Palestinian Territory in 1967, Fatah integrated PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization founded in 1964) and its political program became the constitution of a democratic state on the territory of Palestine before 1948, where Jews, Christians and Muslims could live together. In the 70s, international terrorist actions, murder, hostage taking, plane hijackings, were carried out by the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and the group Black September, created after the bloody expulsion to Lebanon of the Palestinian structures in Jordan. Resistance, terrorism and repression continued in Israel, the Palestinian Territories and neighboring Arab countries until the 1990s. The war in Lebanon (1975-1990) was responsible for more than 250 000 victims.

The first intifada (1987-1993) consolidated the Palestinian unity around the PLO and Fatah and put the Palestinian problem on the agenda of the United Nations. In November 1988, Fatah proclaimed independence of Palestine in the 1967 territory, accepting the UN resolution 242, abandoning terrorism and putting to the secondary level, UN resolution 194 about the right of return for refugees (1948) ; the PLO obtained permanent observer status at the UN. Yasser Arafat was the leader of Fatah and the PLO (1969 to 1994) and President of the Palestinian Authority until 2004.

Political recognition of the Palestinian grew and Israeli settlement continued. The Oslo Accords, negotiated in 1994 in favor of the dominant, took account at that time of settlements (260,000 settlers) to define the transitional arrangements (the Palestinian state to be created in December 1998) of Israeli control over the Palestinian Territory:

• area A (18% of the West Bank), civil and administrative autonomy under Palestinian Authority – Gaza and main Palestinian urban centers in the West Bank.
• area B (22%) administrative autonomy of PA – Hundreds of villages and Refugee Camps.
• area C (60%) under Israeli military control – East Jerusalem, colonial infrastructures and hundreds of Palestinian villages.

[the Gaza Strip decolonized in 2005 is under area A, except the territories adjacent to the wall belt, called « No-Go Zone » and « High Risk Area » by the UN]

Until 1994, hundreds of Palestinians were detained in the Israeli secret detention center located in Al-Farah, near Nablus. Many former inmates testify to unlivable conditions and torture. They say they were repeatedly beaten, tied in painful positions, doused with feces, deprived of food, water and sleep. They evoke total isolation, threats against their families, fear of being killed.

Although torture was banned by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1999, two thirds of Palestinian detainees are subjected to acts of reported violence, like being beaten, kicked, violently shaken, forced to get in painful positions or wear handcuffs too tight. 4600 Palestinians, including 200 children are prisoners in Israeli jails in 2012. The Unicef evaluates « approximately 700 each year the number of Palestinian children 12 to 17 years, the vast majority are boys, arrested, interrogated and detained by the army, the police and agents of Israeli security”. Any Palestinian may be detained for periods of 6 months, renewable, without a trial taking place, 95% of trials have not taken place. In 2012, The State of Israel recognized the existence of secret prisons on its territory.

Since 1948, 750,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned in Israeli prisons.

After the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish opposed the Oslo Accords in 1995 and the coming to power of Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud) in 1996, the « peace process » stalled. Israel retained military prerogatives throughout the Palestinian territory, controlling the majority of West Bank water resources and benefiting from Paris Protocol (supplement to the Oslo Accords), which provides limited economic freedom for the Palestinians. The violence resumed with the second intifada erupted in September 2000, after the visit of Ariel Sharon to Esplanade of the Mosques. The « wall of separation » of 750 km, which construction started in 2002, annex 15% of the West Bank and incorporates many colonies within a border created de facto. Freedom of movement for Palestinians is severely limited. Practicing the policy of fait accompli despite UN resolutions, peace negotiations and in violation of the Geneva Conventions (especially Article 49 which forbids the occupying power to establish civil colonies), the Israeli state accentuates the colonization of territories it considers “disputed and not occupied”.

Since 2004, the UN recognizes Palestinian territorial integrity using the term « Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem » (resolution 58/292). Israel unilaterally decolonized the Gaza Strip in 2005, but its 1.6 million people remain trapped in this tiny territory of 360 km2 from where Hamas who took power in 2008, continue the armed struggle against the Israeli State.

A Palestinian state became an observer member in the UN in 2012, but the key issues of a just, sustainable and completeness solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are not resolved: the right of return (resolution 194) to more than 5 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants, the question of settlements and the wall, the status of East Jerusalem (Resolution 242), the Oslo Accords that organize Israeli domination, the situation of Palestinians in Gaza and Israel.

How can the Palestinian State seek justice before international bodies, particularly before the International Criminal Court for violation of the Geneva Conventions?

In 2012, 2.7 million Palestinians and 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank – including 300,000 in 120 settlements occupying 10% of West Bank land and 200,000 in 30 settlements in 12 neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.

Since 1950, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is responsible for more than 60 000 deaths.