The Great Palestine Money-Grab
Ben Thomson, LawFuel contributing editor
The UK recognised a Palestinian state on 21 September 2025, all warm words and zero line items. Within days, the bill arrived. Mahmoud Abbas’s camp is pushing a “Britain Owes Palestine” petition: acknowledgment, apology, reparations, the lot. It’s a litigation-shaped press release, sharpened by serious counsel, designed to make Westminster choose between legal arguments and political cost. The optics are immaculate. The law, less so.
The fortunes accumulated by Hamas leaders’ and their families, living in luxury in Qatar, is near-legendary. Mahmoud Abbas is not untainted by his own activities and the Palestinian Authority has major corruption issues also.
The Abbas petition asks the UK to own up to “serial international law violations” during the Mandate, apologise, and pay reparations. It’s a 400-plus page brief from Matrix Chambers coordinated by human-rights KCs Ben Emmerson and Danny Friedman, (pictured) with Bindmans LLP in the mix, and historians like Avi Shlaim and John Quigley. The campaign’s public slogan is simple enough: Britain owes Palestine.
There is no official figure in the legal filing; fact-checkers have already flagged the number as social-media fantasy stitched onto real news.
State responsibility and “full reparation.” Expect pleadings to chant the International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility and the old Chorzów line: cessation, non-repetition, compensation, satisfaction. It’s classic doctrine useful for moral pressure, not a cheque printer in the Administrative Court.
The ICJ is advisory theatre unless the UK consents to jurisdiction in a contentious case, which it won’t.
To dodge intertemporal law and limitation, petitioners will pitch mandate-era wrongs as continuing harms feeding into today’s occupation questions. The ICJ’s advisory work on the Wall and the 2024 advisory opinion will be waved around for atmosphere, even if it doesn’t make HMG liable in damages.
The petition will gesture at two real-world comparators that are political, not binding: the UK’s Mau Mau settlement and Germany’s agreement with Namibia over the Herero/Nama genocide, both structured as reconciliation and development, carefully avoiding the reparations label. UK statement to Parliament and Germany–Namibia reporting, plus recent Reuters coverage of continuing talks in Namibia.
The Filing Strategy – Start in Whitehall, not The Hague
The petition is served on the UK government to force a response; if stonewalled, they can try to lever a judicial review into the High Court for procedural oxygen.
Emmerson KC and Friedman KC are seasoned in public-law and rights-heavy litigation, which tells you the forum shopping is as much about headlines as holdings.
The odds in Court may be thin. Sovereign immunity, the act-of-state doctrine, non-justiciability, and limitation issues run into 1917–1948 conduct. Even if parts are reframed as “continuing,” damages against the UK Government for mandate-era policies is a heroic climb. The real leverage is political given that the UK just recognised Palestine and wants to look constructive rather than defensive.
The Palestine ‘Debt’
The debt push lands immediately after recognition and serves to convert symbolism into a price tag: you recognised the state, now recognise the debt.
Multiple outlets are explicitly tying the claim’s rollout to that diplomatic decision.
Expect reliance by the lawyers on mandate-era policing of the Arab Revolt, alleged breaches of the laws of occupation, and the Balfour Declaration as the original sin. That is narrative gold in the current climate of anti-Israel hysteria where the country, once again, faces a war it’s not permitted to win.
Who’s Behind It?
Front-of-house petitioners include elderly Palestinians with direct mandate-era harms, such as Munib al-Masri. Back-office, it’s coordinated by Ben Emmerson KC and Danny Friedman KC with academic experts and Bindmans LLP. For once, the press release names are not decorative.
Motivation.
Abbas is achieving both relevance and leverage from the recognition. The reparations gambit plays beautifully to domestic audiences, pressures London, and drags Britain into century-old arguments at the precise moment a British government wants to look forward-eyed and grown-up.
If Whitehall ever signed a cheque, which it can ill-afford given current economic issues, you can expect escrow, conditionality, and audits tighter than a Chancery judge’s smile.
Allegations about the Abbas family’s business interests have been reported for years, including Reuters’ original work on US-funded contracts linked to his sons and Panama Papers-era reporting on offshore holdings. None of that proves personal theft by Abbas, but it guarantees donor paranoia and strict controls.
What’s the Likely Endgame?
This is pressure politics. The plausible off-ramp looks like archives opened, language of “regret,” maybe a formal apology for specific episodes, plus development-style funds that are not labeled “reparations.” It’s the Mau Mau/Namibia playbook: a political settlement dressed as history homework.
