Tag Archives: uk foreign policy

Following World War II, in which tens of millions of non-combatants were deliberately targeted and killed, internationally agreed laws were drawn up to safeguard civilians in future conflicts.  A heavy responsibility was laid on signatories, first to ensure that their own forces didn’t commit the newly specified war crimes, and second to take action to prevent others from doing so.  Sadly, the Israeli military action in Gaza since late 2023 has shown that the noble aspirations Great Britain solemnly signed up to have vanished into the ether.  Israel’s retaliation after the Hamas attack has turned into a one-sided slaughter which has been horrific to watch and has involved multiple breaches of humanitarian law.

The idea that the UK has had no power to stop the killing destruction in Gaza is totally false.  We could have ended verbal support and military assistance to Israel in November 2023, when it first became clear that for many of Israel’s military leaders the real target was the Palestinian people of Gaza, not Hamas.  We could, and should, have followed that up with sanctions – imposed not on a few of the West Bank settlers, but on the whole of Israel.  Such action by the British would have been welcomed and imitated by France, Spain and Ireland, putting pressure on the rest of Europe to follow suit.

Although it may seem too late, we can still do this now.  With Trump in the White House, those who feared challenging Biden’s US position have a much easier question to answer: do we want to be seen to side with Trump’s America and support a genocidal land-grab by Israel, or is it in our own interest to dissociate ourselves from it ?  Not only would we be doing right by the Palestinians, but a European refusal to continue supporting Israel would put Trump in a difficult position.  He might feel he had to follow our lead, but if he didn’t, the American public would find themselves isolated as supporters of what will very likely be officially declared a genocide; home support for Trump could be damaged as a result, which would be another win for the action I’m proposing.