This week, as Israel intensifies its ground operation in Gaza and aid agencies warn of impending famine, the UK government seems to be finally taking a stand. On Tuesday, the UK joined France and Canada in issuing a joint statement condemning Israel’s ongoing aid blockade and military escalation and warning of “concrete actions” if the Israeli government fails to change course. The following day, Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced a series of new measures, including a formal pause on UK-Israel trade negotiations, targeted sanctions on illegal settlers, and the summoning of the Israeli Ambassador to the UK – a rare diplomatic move not taken since the killing of World Central Kitchen aid workers in April 2024.
These are important and long-overdue steps, signalling a shift in government rhetoric and a new willingness to intervene after months of equivocation. But in the face of daily mass atrocities in Gaza, tougher and more comprehensive measures are required to compel urgent, on-the-ground change and pave the way to just and lasting solutions.
The need for decisive international action could not be clearer. After eleven weeks of total blockade, at least 500,000 people in Gaza face a critical risk of famine. Following mounting international pressure, Israel is now allowing a “basic amount of food” to enter, but this is a fig leaf, nothing more, certainly nowhere near enough to avert mass death from starvation. The UN’s humanitarian chief has warned that 14,000 babies could die within days without immediate help. At the same time, Israel has launched a fresh ground offensive aimed at seizing yet more Palestinian territory and forcibly displacing the population, killing at least 500 Palestinians since the offensive began last week. In the West Bank, illegal settlement building, land seizures and settler violence continue to surge, with senior minister Smotrich vowing that Israel will “apply sovereignty” i.e. illegally annex the land before the current government’s term ends in 2026.
For too long, the UK government has enabled these atrocities through inaction, evasion, and quiet complicity. Even as international legal bodies have made clear that the Israeli government is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and that its occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful, UK ministers have carefully avoided directly acknowledging Israel’s breaches of international law, preferring instead to reference “risks” of breaches. Rather than using its leverage to press for compliance with international law, the UK has consistently sent a dangerous message: that Israel is free to violate international law with impunity.
Given the scale of past UK complicity and the urgency of the situation for millions of starving, dislocated and beleaguered Palestinians, this week’s new measures are belated steps in the right direction. But they are still totally inadequate. The government must use all available economic and diplomatic measures to pressure the Israeli government to change course. Instead, it has introduced piecemeal sanctions against select individuals and organisations which, though important in principle, are simply not generating the political pressure required to halt the killing, end the aid blockade, and stop illegal settlement expansion. A more effective move would be to impose sanctions on the senior Israeli officials openly advocating annexation and mass displacement, something the Liberal Democrats and others have long called for.
Even the decision to suspend trade negotiations, while welcome and necessary, does not go far enough. The UK must go further by ending all trade with illegal settlements and prohibiting UK companies from operating in or profiting from them. Without this, the UK remains complicit in entrenching an unlawful occupation that the International Court of Justice has found to violate the prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid.
This week’s measures also fail to address UK military support for Israel. Despite announcing a partial suspension last autumn, the government has quietly authorised an increase in arms exports to the country in the months since. Alongside this, reports of continuing British surveillance flights over Gaza raise serious questions about whether UK intelligence has been used to facilitate Israeli military operations that may amount to war crimes. Only last week, government lawyers argued in the High Court that protecting the F-35 global supply chain is more important than fulfilling the UK’s legal obligations to prevent genocide. And on Tuesday, just hours after announcing its new tougher measures, the UK sent yet another surveillance flight over Gaza. The result is a government that says one thing and does another: condemning violence outwardly while continuing to enable it behind the scenes.
If the government is serious about ending UK complicity, it must fundamentally re-evaluate its stance, and focus on creating the conditions for negotiating peace and security for the region. This means not only implementing comprehensive sanctions and a full arms embargo, but also immediately recognising an independent Palestinian state. It makes good sense to do this jointly with France, our co-signatory of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the 1916 treaty that laid the foundation for the Palestinians’ current plight. As Lib Dem Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Calum Miller suggested in Parliament this week, this formal recognition would ideally happen at next month’s Saudi-French-led UN Summit on a two-state solution. Such a move would affirm the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination, while marking a necessary step towards addressing the deep structural inequalities at the heart of the Israel–Palestine conflict.
The government’s measures this week are a step forward, but they must go much further. We are witnessing grave violations of international law, in full view of the international community. The UK cannot meet this moment with caution and half-measures. It must respond with principle, resolve, and the political courage to act.
* Jonathan Brown is a District Councillor for Chichester North and Vice Chair of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine.
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18 Comments
This is a good article from the LDFP, but as I’ve made clear elsewhere in the LDV, in my opinion it fails in much the same way as the UK government is failing – by proposing tentative half-measures. Recognising Palestine will make no difference whatsoever, and selective sanctions on a few individuals wouldn’t make Israel change course – if anything, it would provoke more gestures of defiance.
Only full sanctions, by the UK and others, would force Israelis to face the truth, which is that what they are doing is not just morally wrong, it’s completely disgusting to everyone around the world who isn’t caught up in the same set of delusions that they are. Letting them know that would be a kindness, because at some stage in the future they are going to have to reflect on what they’ve done, under the leadership of some very unsavoury characters.
I agree that the government’s actions are largely symbolic but, and it’s a big BUT, it focus’s attention on what was considered an ‘untouchable’ nation…
There is a growing distaste, even in Israel, for the actions of it’s government and the world’s (largely*) silence, in what in any other country would be deemed genocide, has left that internal distaste and opposition without a platform on the world stage; hopefully that will start to change…
* I believe that South Africa’s actions against Israel is what has led to Trump’s attempted humiliation of it’s president, and his false accusations about a supposed genocide, when the real genocide is the one he supports
Jonathan- I agree with everything you say. The best way to stop settlement produce would be for UK customs to be instructed to demand proof from Israeli exporters that products originate from within Israel itself – I.e. from within the pre – 1967 ceasefire lines, and not the OPT. Special certificates of origin could be demanded from Israel. Netanyahu and his ilk would hate this, but it should be the political price of exporting to the UK.
This whole situation is so utterly depressing, I don’t believe any other country could behave this way and avoid global sanctions at all levels.
It appears to me that Israel has succeeded in destroying the international rules based order. The implications of our government’s complicity may well include a far more dangerous world for everyone.
Thanks everyone for your comments.
Andy, some of the things LDFP – and the party – calls for are more symbolic than practical. Plenty of states already recognise Palestine. Whilst UK recognition would I am sure carry more weight that Bhutan’s, probably the only country’s recognition that might change Israeli behaviour is the US’.
But others would, I believe, have real power. Netanyahu is unpopular in Israel… but he’d be much more unpopular if he actually paid a price for his actions. Opposition to him would be strengthened by the application of a strict ban on trade with the settlements. As John McHugo notes, this would require Israel to acknowledge and treat the settlements differently to be able to export anything into our market.
Likewise, although UK arms are a relatively small part of Israel’s toolbox, a genuine block on all new sales would be noticed.
I think these actions are more likely to bring about change than a blanket ban on trade would (which would risk rallying support to the government). The key is to find actions that will be really felt in Israel but which don’t alienate the people needed to force a change of course.
The article says Netanyahu’s feeble responses to claims that he’s starving the civilians in Gaza amount to “a fig leaf.” But in my opinion he doesn’t care about hiding anything from the world, and what he’s actually doing, all the time, is pushing the envelope – in order to find out exactly where the boundary lies between what we will accept and what we won’t.
The danger of letting him do that while under the threat that we might do something “concrete” is that he will find a way of reducing the level of horror we are experiencing to a point where Starmer and Lammy can go back to sleep. I’m sure they would welcome that, and that is exactly what I predict will happen. I desperately hope I’m wrong.
I remain unconvinced that the softly, softly approach will achieve anything for the Palestinians, and still think a complete embargo on all trade is the only way to shock the Israelis into realisation that the ICJ may be making only slow progress on the matter of genocide, but the world has already passed judgement, and they have been found guilty on all counts.
I listened again this morning to the painful reports on Radio 4 Today of the continuing genocidal actions and statements of the Netanyahu government. I do wish that every time the BBC and politicians mention Netanyahu‘a name that they remind everybody that he is indicted for war crimes and should be be on trial in The Hague.
Benjamin Netanyahu has yet again sought to link any criticism of Israel’s actions to antisemitism.
He has accused Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of “emboldening Hamas” and, after they called for a halt to Israel’s military offensive and an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid in Gaza, he equated that criticism to supporting those who wanted to “destroy the Jewish state” and “annihilate the Jewish people”.. “I could never understand how this simple truth evades the leaders of France, Britain, Canada and others.”
If ANY criticism, however diplomatically couched, draws such a response then one might as well “Tell it how it is and clear the air”..
I agree wholeheartedly with Andy Daer’s final paragraph….
We need to press the Starmer govt to be more open in our involvement in the Gaza conflict, both directly and indirectly, with regard to the use of the facilities at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
The government is stonewalling when questions are asked in Parliament. It would help if Lib Dems added to the pressure too.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/britain-sent-over-500-spy-flights-to-gaza/
Ref: Andy Daer
“I remain unconvinced that the softly, softly approach will achieve anything for the Palestinians, and still think a complete embargo on all trade is the only way to shock the Israelis into realisation that the ICJ may be making only slow progress on the matter of genocide, but the world has already passed judgement, and they have been found guilty on all counts.”
Agree.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c4g28z483eko
“Investigating Israel’s strike on Gaza’s European Hospital
On Tuesday 13 May, Israeli strikes on the European Hospital in Gaza killed 28 people and injured dozens, according to the Hamas-run civil defence agency.
BBC Verify analysed footage, gathered witness testimony and spoke to munitions and legal experts to examine how one of Gaza’s last functioning hospitals came under Israeli attack.
Expert analysis and verified footage point to the use of ‘bunker buster’ bombs in strikes on the hospital. Legal experts say the targeting of hospitals without warning may constitute a war crime.
The Israeli army says it was targeting a Hamas command and control centre beneath the European hospital complex, but did not provide any evidence of this.”
I can’t recall any examples of when the IDF has provided credible evidence of its claims.
I complained to the BBC yesterday by email, after listening to the World at One on Radio 4, on their soft treatment there of an Israeli government spokesperson who was denouncing a UN statement about the danger of “14000 babies” in Gaza likely to die of starvation. Sarah Montague never pointed out that due to the 11-day prevention of humanitarian aid by Israel to Gaza it had been widely reported that there were indeed babies near starvation, with graphic images of them being shown on TV. With the Israeli government now accusing Keir Starmer and fellow leaders of supporting Hamas and ‘being on the wrong side of history’!, we must ask our own Foreign Affairs spokesperson Calum Miller to back our government in this and refuse to allow vital criticism of the Israeli government’s continuing attempt to take over Gaza by military attack, displacement of the people and control of what little aid is to be allowed in to be described as stoking hatred of Jews, which unfortunately their own actions are actually likely to contribute to.
I don’t disagree with you @Andy when you say that Netanyahu isn’t worried about hiding what he’s doing. And I agree he’s pushing the envelop.
But I think the ‘fig leaf’ serves a purpose in the same way that Putin talking about NATO expansion, or Ukrainian Neo-Nazis is a fig leaf. The purpose in these cases is NOT to present credible evidence for an alternative way of understanding the reality, it’s to serve up a talking point that allows allies / stooges / willful idiots in the west to defend the indefensible.
Those who will defend Israel (or Russia) regardless of the facts and in any circumstances find it useful to be able to quote these talking points. As I say, the aim isn’t to convince anyone that what they say is true, it’s to fill up space, enable poor journalists to say that there are ‘two sides to the story (implying that either one is equally plausible) and to create confusion among audiences that are not following the story very closely. It’s to defuse the will to act by those who would otherwise be enraged at what is happening.
@expats, yes, it does seem astonishing that world leaders have failed to explicitly call out the preposterous claim that opposition to genocide is derived from antisemitism. It would be astonishing if antisemites hadn’t taken this opportunity to jump on the band-wagon, when Israel’s behaviour was making it an international pariah, and in this case rhetoric on its own is needed. David ‘Rip Van Winkle’ Lammy fulminated convincingly about Israel in parliament a few days ago, but where has he been for the last year and a half? A better Foreign Secretary would have long ago outed Israel for hiding behind false accusations of antisemitism (and might also have been embarrassed to put on such a theatrical show of outrage after being asleep throughout the more or less total destruction of Gaza). Trump has a completely different reason for supporting the idea the pro-Palestine equals anti-Semitism; it’s helpful in his vendetta against Harvard. Trump, possibly even more of a narcissist than Netanyahu, occasionally declares empathy with ‘beautiful people’ caught up in wars, but dreams of being a peacemaker only because success would feed his ego.
The threats issued by Canada, France and the UK have created a pivotal moment for the people of Gaza. The members of the group which made the announcement will have to decide in the next few days whether they are going to follow it up with really meaningful action, of a kind which has the potential to topple the Netanyahu government. If they don’t, it will become just one of a long list of failures to uphold international law on behalf of a people who have suffered far too much already, in full view of the world. The Palestinians will say we abandoned them, and they will be right to do so.
What I’m saying is that using starvation was a huge tactical error by Netanyahu, because there is now a good reason to impose damaging sanctions on Israel, which would bring down the government. That would end the war and could open the way to the two-state solution. This is a golden opportunity to destroy Netanyahu’s credibility, and save the Palestinians in Gaza, but if we don’t do it now, he will navigate his way to a slightly less cruel policy for Gaza, and we will have missed the kind of chance which probably won’t come again.
The article below, in “the Conversation”, makes depressing reading:
‘ Rabbi Moshe Ratt, who’s seen as a public intellectual among Israeli West Bank settlers, composed a long post on Facebook.
In it, he noted that in the past, some people may have struggled with the morality of destroying an entire people, including women and children. Now they don’t. Obliquely referring to the Palestinians, he added, “Some nations have descended into such depths of evil and corruption that the only solution is to eradicate them completely, leaving no trace.” ‘
https://theconversation.com/in-israel-calls-for-genocide-have-migrated-from-the-margins-to-the-mainstream-250010
@Peter Martin 24th May ’25 – 1:01pm..
We have all seen the horrific results of those same sentiments, albeit in a different place and time..
A perfect example of how ‘the abused become the abusers’
It is surely urgent now that our government takes further action to inhibit the Israeli government’s measures against the Palestinians by all means possible, and I have just written to our Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Calum Miller, to urge him to encourage this. It does seem as if Netanyahu’s government is indeed engaged in ethnic cleansing in Gaza: shoot and starve the populace until they at last give in and seek to leave.