The substitution of military authority for civilian rule, often during periods of political conflict or natural disaster, and during which military commanders assume absolute power in governance and law enforcement. Though meant to be temporary, martial law can extend indefinitely, in which case civil liberties are often suspended. Britain declared martial law in Palestine on December 11, 1917, following General Edmund Allenby’s capture of Jerusalem from the Ottomans, days prior. Palestine remained under British martial law until 1920, when it transitioned to a form of British civil administration as part of the Colonial Mandate system.
Over the course of the next three decades, though Britain did not officially reimpose martial law in Palestine, it governed Palestine with an iron fist, suppressing any political activism, as though it were under martial law. In 1931, following the 1929 al-Buraq Uprising, London issued the first Palestine (Defence) Order in Council, which provided the high commissioner with sweeping powers in the event of future emergencies, including, among other measures, the power to impose curfews, censorship, arrest, detention, and deportation with trial, as well as property expropriation. In September 1936, five months after the start of the three-year Great Palestinian Revolt, Britain invoked and expanded upon the 1931 Order in Council in the Palestine Martial Law (Defence) Order in Council. This law granted the high commissioner unchecked powers associated with martial law, including the power to try civilians in military courts.
But it was Britain’s 1945 Defence (Emergency) Regulations that had the most lasting impact on Palestinians. The regulations granted British authorities in Palestine sweeping powers of warrantless searches, expropriation and demolition of property, censorship, detentions, and more. The new Israeli government incorporated the 1945 regulations in one of its first laws—the Law and Administration Ordinance of 1948—subjecting Palestinians under its rule to different forms of collective punishment under the pretext of an emergency. This law remains in effect to this day.