Liberal Democrats along with the SNP, the Green Party and several Independent MPs have recognised that Israel has committed genocide as defined by the Genocide Convention. So far so good.
The bad news is that the failure to act by the British and other governments frankly amounts to complicity in war crimes. The UK Government still hasn’t announced how it plans to follow up the 2024 ICJ judgements which warned of the plausible risk of genocide, confirmed that Israeli settlements are illegal and stated that other countries should not have any dealings with those settlements.
The Trump ‘Peace Plan’ has done nothing to end the occupation, and the Board of Peace includes indicted war criminals Netanyahu and Putin, with not a single Palestinian. (Nor a single woman!). As Kaja Kallas, the EU Foreign Affairs chief, said at the Munich Security Conference last weekend, the Board’s Charter doesn’t even mention Gaza or Palestine and risks undermining the United Nations.
It is 78 years since Israel was created and forcibly displaced over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, systematically murdering many on the way. 78 long years that Palestinians have lived under occupation, displacement, and collective punishment.
In the past 29 months, 72,045 Palestinians have been reported killed in Gaza by Israeli arms. This official toll, which the Israeli military has now endorsed, only includes confirmed direct deaths from bombings and shootings, where bodies have been found. It does not account for indirect deaths, from disease or starvation, for example, or for bodies still under the rubble. Over 500 Gazans have been killed since the so-called ceasefire – many for straying close to the Yellow Line to which Israeli troops have withdrawn but keep arbitrarily moving.
While the world’s attention has been fixed upon the annihilation in Gaza, settlers in the West Bank have intensified their campaign of ethnic cleansing, aided and abetted by government ministers and the IDF. As of 5 February 2026, according to the UN, 1054 West Bank Palestinians had been killed since October 2023, a fifth of them children. Many more have been driven from their homes by relentless harassment and the destruction of properties, with entire Palestinian communities erased. This violence has further eroded the already fragile Palestinian economy.
Israel has now stepped up this de facto annexation of the West Bank by making it easier for settlers to take over Palestinian land. Announcing the move, Finance Minister Smotrich said “We will continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state,”. The move has been condemned by many governments, including our own, but no new sanctions have been announced. Smotrich is not just an individual speaking out of turn. He represents the Government of the State of Israel.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to detain more than 9000 Palestinians without a fair (or any) trial, including approximately 300 children and over 80 health workers. There are widespread reports by Israeli and international human rights organisations of torture and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees.
The Lib Dems in Parliament continue to take a much firmer moral stance than the UK Government on what should happen next. The pathetic, weekly hand-wringing from Hamish Falconer, the Minister for the Middle East, needs to be challenged. The Government needs to publish its long overdue response to the ICJ ruling and agree with Wes Streeting’s recent admission that international law is being broken and that war crimes have been committed. Israel is not going to stop its relentless murdering of civilians, nor the West Bank annexation, nor accept a two-state solution unless Western governments step up their pressure for change. Our problem is that voters are not hearing the Lib Dems outside Parliament. They are only hearing the Greens across the UK and the SNP in Scotland.
It would be good to see our MPs working with other parties and using every opportunity (including, where possible, by forcing a vote) to put the utmost pressure on the Government to take decisive action. This must include supporting Arab diplomacy and the closely-aligned New York Declaration, a multi-lateral plan endorsed by allies including the EU and Canada, which provides a strong alternative to Trump’s ‘Peace Plan’. We must also keep demanding a complete and immediate ban on trade with Israeli settlements (Party policy since 2021).
There are a range of other steps the Government could also be urged to take – all of which follow naturally from our respect for international law:
- Sanction any representatives or employees of the Government of Israel (in their official capacities) supporting or enacting serious violations of international law.
- Immediately suspend the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement and cease all military cooperation with Israel until it brings itself in line with international law.
- Empower the British police to investigate, arrest and prosecute British or dual national citizens suspected of complicity in war crimes perpetuated by Israel.
- Suspend the discriminatory visa system that allows Israel citizens visa free travel to the UK without extending the same privilege to Palestinians, until Palestinians and Israelis can receive equal treatment, and Israel allows free travel to and from the occupied territories for Palestinians.
Taking serious steps like these should send shock waves through Israeli society, putting extremists on notice. It will also empower brave Israeli politicians and human rights activists to stand up to their government from a much stronger position, especially as they approach Israel’s upcoming General Election.
* John Kelly is the Secretary of Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine and an active member in Warwickshire.
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21 Comments
Thank you John for a well presented set of facts. It’s sometimes hard to know the facts from the fiction in this story. The aggressor often becomes the victim in and the victim becomes the aggressor. One thing for sure, Israel is no longer the victim in the eyes of the world’s population, however, when will those in power catch up? Probably when we change them. What will the history books write about this time of global lawlessness….. I have land title deeds that my grandfather owned, now Israelis live on it after the Nakbha of 1948. We have land title deeds in the West Bank and the same is happening, Israeli terrorists aka settlers are using guns to drive people away and the IDF is protecting the terrorists.
I welcome MP’s to be bolder and louder . We have shown our fierceness before and we can do this again. MPs underestimate how much their words and actions can not only be life changing but empowering for our members and non
John Kelly’s article is sobering reminder that the persecution of Palestinians didn’t start with Israel’s war on Gaza, and hasn’t ended with the so-called ceasefire.
We are also advised, not for the first time in the LDV, that the government of the United Kingdom is very likely complicit in Genocide, the most heinous crime of all. And yet the prime minister who has led our country into this shameful place is being pilloried for appointing an ambassador who looked well qualified at the time, and only less so with the benefit of hindsight, instead of for failing to act to prevent the killing of tens of thousands of people. Some MPs from all sides have spoken out in condemnation, but too few to reach the hearts or minds of the current crop of government ministers.
Many thanks John for reminding us, comprehensively of the terrible reality of the suffering of the Palestinian people. The U.K. along with the majority of countries in the world, recognise a Palestine state, yet the government is doing little to ensure the extremist Israeli government stops its mission to ensure there will not be a Palestinian state. The Lib Dem’s have also been far too quiet. In the past we had people like David Steele and Paddy Ashdown, who would now surely be taking every opportunity to put pressure on the government, who simply express their ‘concern’ when British war graves are bulldozed, when 37 aid agencies are blocked from providing vital aid, & the IDF continue to bomb people in tents during a ‘ceasefire’ . This will be the third Ramadan for Palestinians who have no homes, scarce food, & essential aid because it’s being deliberately restricted by Israel. The majority of people in this country & globally, are way ahead of the muted voices in our governments who will forever be remembered as being complicit to this.
Excellent article John.
Rightly or wrongly, the Israel-Palestine conflict (which in its current phase can accurately be characterised as the State of Israel continuing to commit genocide against the Palestinians) attracts interest around the world. At a time where we are worrying about democratic backsliding – and the open attempts to end democracy in countries like the USA – calls such as Mark Carney’s for ‘middle powers’ to work together to protect rights and institutions are gravely undermined in the eyes of much of the world by western hypocrisy over our governments’ treatment of Israel.
Our party’s position and policy is pretty good but you wouldn’t know it. Most of the public don’t know it. We really need our parliamentary team to act to make sure our voice is heard. It strikes me that an opposition day motion, forcing the government to vote, would be a really good way to do this. It needn’t be on Israel-Palestine alone, but the messaging on Israel-Palestine needs to be much clearer and bolder and prominent.
John Kelly makes some very good points. Yes, of course the Party must step up its pressure on the UK Government, and shout out more loudly across the country.
As the third party we have Opposition Days where we determine the agenda. Please would Ed use one of these to force a vote on the Government’s Palestine policy?
Meanwhile our MPs must talk much more earnestly about our policies outside Parliament. Many voters, including in my own North Norfolk constituency area, will want to show their disapproval of Starmer’s failure to hold Israel to account for its genocide. Lib Dems can’t afford to let voters only hear this disapproval coming from the Greens and the SNP.
Just seen a message from the Christian charity ‘Embrace Middle East’ saying “the UK Government has said it is committed to peace in Israel and Palestine but failed so far to take concrete action”.
“Our problem is that voters are not hearing the Lib Dems outside Parliament. They are only hearing the Greens across the UK and the SNP in Scotland.” So true and not only on this issue. Our MPs need to go around the country and be heard outside Parliament.
Readers may find the book “Complicit: Britain’s Role in the Destruction of Gaza”, by Peter Oborne, worth reading
https://www.declassifieduk.org/complicity-or-conspiracy-britains-role-in-israels-genocide/
I don’t demur from John Kelly’s general drift, but it really is important to use all the facts and not just ones that bolster your argument.
Whilst it is true that around 3/4 million Palestinian Muslims left Israel after the state was created, it was not mainly to do with the Israeli state. The surrounding Arab states told the Muslim population to move and promised them that they would eradicate the upstart Israeli state and then they could return to their land and houses. Over 70 years later that has not happened.
I really don’t know if Ben Gurion’s government wanted the Palestinian population to move. Jews and Muslims had resided side by side for many years, my aunt and her daughter for sure.
So, it is quite right to criticise the Government of Israel and to demand that the UK government to take action to prevent further killings and seizure of territory and to face down Netanyahu’s constant complaints about anti-semitism. But please use all the facts and not just some of them
Nigel Jones is exactly right. As a Party we are not only in danger of losing our support base to the Greens, but without a strong message, fail to beat Reform. I live in the Winchester Consituency which has had a long-term see-saw between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives. We currently have a Lib Dem MP. It is difficult to see what will happen to the Conservative vote right now, but Reform is definitely gaining popularity and the Lib Dems may not just find themselves opposing Reform, but be in grave danger of the its vote being split by the Greens. We need to speak out for the human rights, international law and social justice that we are supposed to stand for, especially when it comes to Palestine. I often find myself a loan voice in local Lib Dem circles. Yes, I am supported and people agree with my stance, but they do not speak up themsleves nor take any real action. My daughter in London has already moved over to and become active for the Greens. I fear that many others will do the same.
In many consitituencies that would be a disaster for us.
Some of us have raised the question of Zionist Israel’s blatant ethnic cleansing – inevitably involving acts of Genocide – with LibDem lawmakers and even LibDem Friends of Palestine for several years. I am afraid that matters have been left far too late. The REAL driving force for Zionist Israel’s Crimes Against Humanity is (mainly US), Evangelicals and Christian Zionists who believe that Jewish colonisation of ancient Zion / Greater Israel will fulfil an End-of-times condition paving the way for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Jewish Zionists may not believe this, but welcome US bombs and cash to achieve their own ends.
These people collect funds to support Zionist Jews, for example to build the Third Jewish Temple on Temple Mount, despite it currently being occupied by Islam’s third-most Holy shrine. The signs of End-of-times events are there. Some will even welcome WWIII or Armageddon, safe in the knowledge that Good, (IE THEM), will triumph and Jesus will rule for 1,000 years. Please don’t dismiss this as nonsense. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide devoutly believe in it, including some with power to ensure that some events do happen. It maybe UNChristian to support ethnic cleansing and genocide, but so was murder, torture and burning people at the stake. Many Christians firmly believe that they are encouraging The Lord’s return. I don’t believe that this can now be discouraged, even if pro-Palestinians and others had the will to do so.
This is a disappointingly partial and misleading representation of history.
In 1947/48 some 750,000 Palestinian Arabs were indeed displaced in fighting which resulted in the ceasefire lines of 1949, a civil war followed by invasion by Israel’s neighbours. Had Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Transjordan succeeded in destroying the nascent State in 1948, the consequences for the Jewish population would have been unthinkable.
Around the same time, the ancient Jewish populations of the Arab states of the Middle East were being persecuted, murdered and expelled out of existence. Their numbers were approaching 900,000. They had homes, businesses, front door keys and no doubt property deeds. There are usually two sides to every tale although you would not have gathered that from Mr Kelly’s account.
Fortunately the State of Israel existed to provide a home for most of them. There was no need for an UNWRA, the Jews largely helped themselves or fellow Jews helped them. Sadly the same cannot be said for those displaced Palestinian Arabs who were deliberately left in poverty by hugely wealthy Arab states, dependent on UNWRA to this very day, and whose hopes of a return were falsely kept alive for a political cause which involved wiping Israel off the map.
From that terrible strategic error everything else has flowed. If you want to change the status quo today, perhaps start by accepting why it happened, not an illusion of complete evil on one side and utter victimhood on the other.
It’s fascinating to see how many different descriptions there are of the events in 1947/48 which the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe described in his book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. You probably don’t need to read the book to know what he thought about the suggestion that the 750,000 Palestinians who went into exile did so because they wanted to. However, although the origin of the enmity goes some way towards explaining the current war, nothing could excuse genocide, and nothing can excuse the actions of two successive British governments, whose prime ministers have willfully supported it. What Sunak and Starmer have done, and what they have failed to do – in our name – is a cause of lasting shame for every one of us.
@Mick Taylor not all Palestinians are Muslims. Christianity has been targeted by the Israeli government too. Palestinian Christians and Muslims stand together every day against Israeli occupation. Pro Israel supporters like to erase Christians from the Palestine question because it’s harder to convince the West to support Israel occupy and ethnically cleanse Christians.
@Mick Taylor,
You write, “While it is true that around 3/4 million Muslims left Israel after the State was created, it was not mainly to do with the Israeli state.”
I’m sorry, but it was true. The idea that Arab governments told the Palestinians to leave their home has long since been discredited. About half the Palestinian refugees had been driven from their homes before Ben Gurion proclaimed the independence of Israel. I would recommend Benny Morris’s “The Birth of the Paletinian Refugee Problem revisited”: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-birth-of-the-palestinian-refugee-problem-revisited/benny-morris/9780521009676. It was largely because of this ethnic cleansing that the the Arab states intervened – they had not wanted to commit their armies but were forced to do so by public opinion which saw the militias that became the IDF as armed gangs terrorising the population.
@Sandra Fayle: please see my comment on Mick Taylor’s post. However, you are right to point out the suffering of the Arab Jews, although some of them blame the Zionist movement as well as Arab nationalism for what happened: see Avi Shlaim’s “Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab Jew”:https://www.waterstones.com/book/three-worlds/avi-shlaim/9780861548101. They are justified in doing so.
But you are wrong about UNWRA. The states which took in the refugees were not “hugely wealthy” – far from it – and the refugees wanted to return to their homes (as Syrian refugees are doing today).
When Israel took the West Bank (including E. Jerusalem) and Gaza in 1967, why did it do nothing for the many refugees in the camps there? They became Israel’s responsibility then (58 years ago) and remain so today. Israel turned down peace overtures from Egypt’s Nasser and Jordan’s King Hussein in 1967 which would probably have led to most of the refugees being resettled elsewhere. If Israel had been prepared to make peace then, we would not be where we are today.
@John McHugo thank you I agree with your comments. I am especially glad you mention Israeli Professor Avi Shlaim who was born in Iraq. Although he lives in Oxford and writes well on the history of the region, the British media (including the BBC) have consistently shown their bias by avoiding interviewing people like him and his fellow Israeli academic, who you also mention, Ilan Pappe.
@Steve Trevethan – good recommendation “Readers may find the book “Complicit: Britain’s Role in the Destruction of Gaza”, by Peter Oborne, worth reading
https://www.declassifieduk.org/complicity-or-conspiracy-britains-role-in-israels-genocide/ ”
Peter Oborne will be the guest speaker at the fringe meeting of Lib Dem Friends of Palestine at the York conference next month.
Thanks John for this article. Having a distinctive position on this issue, backed up by a series of practical measures, will help in the current election campaigns. Let’s hope this message comes across loud and clear out of next month’s York conference.
Breaking News: https://x.com/middleeastmnt/status/2024829446226592148?s=48&t=j0DzDz-r7HDoMOzf_oaKZw
“Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has declined a request from a visiting British delegation for a special briefing on the work of the Israeli police, according to Israel’s Channel 14.
The delegation included members of the UK’s Liberal Democrats, the third-largest party in Britain and generally regarded as centre-left, along with members of the House of Commons, the House of Lords and senior advisers.”
@Sandra Fayle, I don’t think any of us who support the Palestinian right to statehood – and to life itself, given the current and ongoing massacre by the IDF in Gaza – think there is “complete evil on one side and utter victimhood on the other.” Right now, however, the Israeli state is trying to complete its theft of Palestine from the Palestinians, which is allegedly God’s will from thousands of years ago, but is unequivocally a flagrant breach of international law. The way they are trying to achieve it is also abhorrent to most civilised people, and horrific for the men, women and children being targeted.
I believe there is no group of people who are intrinsically evil. However, there can be something seriously wrong with people’s perception of the world, and in my view, the idea that Israel has to kill its perceived enemies in order to save itself from imminent annihilation is a delusion – one for which the Palestinians have paid a heavy price.
PSC and affiliated groups are launching a campaign to make Palestine count in the local elections. Cllrs were asked to Pledge for Palestine a short while ago. To date 104 Lib Dems have signed while 347 Greens and 339 Labour have committed although I am sure we have more Cllrs than the Greens. The suggestion is that people vote only for those who have pledged, a separate pledge will be sent to candidates not yet elected. palestinecampaign.org/councillor-pledge-for-palestine. Also candidate asked to publicise their commitment.