By Lara Bird-Leakey
25 October 2024
For 384 days the world has watched the horrors unleashed by a rogue state acting with complete impunity. For 384 days, the UK Government has used the shield of Western democracy to ignore the rule of law and turn a blind eye to the victimisation of the Palestinian people, in a system it helped to create.
As Noura Erakat, a Palestinian-American lawyer and activist, wrote on the anniversary of 7 October, nothing will ever be the same again. The word will never recover from this complete betrayal of what it means to be an innocent civilian. There is fear for whether the symbols of the Red Cross or Crescent will ever stand for protection again, or if the blue journalist vest will rid itself of the target Israel has painted on its back. For the past 384 days, the UK Government has attempted to maintain the illusion of itself as an arbiter of justice: repeating the same empty commitments to a ceasefire and Israeli accountability, while crossing its fingers and prioritising its economic relationship with Israel and a Stockholm Syndrome-esque dependency on the United States. On day 384, it is hard to imagine that the UK Government will ever be able to claim respect for the rule of law or for Palestinian life again: but our task in British civil society is to try to convince it that it must.
The first British debate on Gaza came nine days after 7 October – the events not deemed serious enough to warrant Parliamentary recall. By day nine, the death toll in Gaza had reached 3,000, with 9,700 wounded. United Nations experts were already ringing the alarm bells of genocide. Yet, the opening remarks of Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak were his dedication to the state of Israel. There were no calls for adherence to International Humanitarian Law or for the importance of distinction or the protection of civilians. It was necessary it seemed only for the fear of the Jewish communities and the horrific loss of the hostage families to take their place in the Prime Minister’s speech. It should have been just as necessary to condemn the catastrophic loss of Palestinian life. Yet this did not, at any point, feature in his nine-minute address. This inequality of concern and sympathy set the tone for the narrative which we have now come to expect from a UK Government. It was not just the concentration on Israeli suffering which was amiss, but the total neglect of Palestinian suffering too.
The ‘immediacy’ of a ceasefire has lost all credibility
Just over a year, and over 48,000 (but in reality as many as 150,000) Palestinian lives later, Prime Minister Keir Starmer made a similar speech to that of his predecessor. It took him three minutes to mention deaths in Gaza, and he did so in a single sentence, cloaking the brief mention of Palestinian trauma in a broad condemnation of the escalation in the wider region. Failure to condemn the Israeli Government hands Netanyahu Westminster-approved impunity. This impunity has emboldened him to address the UN General Assembly with a pending ICC warrant for his arrest; impunity which allows Israeli officials to decry the legitimacy of the ICJ and the UN Security Council while targeting schools, universities and hospitals.
With the ironic caveat of his dedication to tolerance and respect, Starmer then spent the remaining nine minutes reiterating the same empty promises which now roll off the tongues of Government Ministers so easily, rendering the words entirely meaningless. Promises of humanitarian aid, hostage deals and accountability are cruel jokes after a year of genocide. The ‘immediacy’ of a ceasefire has lost its credibility after 384 days.
On 9 Jan, 2023, Parliament was granted the first, and only, opportunity to question the (then) Foreign Secretary. What became clear throughout this questioning was the discrepancy between the assessment of the Foreign Office lawyers regarding the threshold of illegality crossed by Israel, and the message that was reaching Parliament.
During this session, Lord Cameron stated that one of the things the UK would like Israel to do was switch the water back on. Admitting not only that he was aware that the water had been turned off deliberately by the Israeli authorities, but that they had the power to turn it back on. Yet, despite purposefully withholding water to civilians constituting a violation of International Humanitarian Law and a war crime, Lord Cameron maintained that he had not been given any advice, or indication, that the Israeli Government had breached the law. With the emboldened confidence that could only stem from a history of violent colonialism, displacement and occupation itself, the UK Government has made clear that the rules of law do not apply to itself, or its allies.
A feigned concern for Palestinian life
This denial of the facts has been continued by the successor Government. It demonstrates that it is unwilling or unable to navigate the politics and consequences of global atrocity. It indicates that it does not, just like its predecessor, believe that the issue of Palestinian lives warrants upholding international law, and that it does not consider this contribution to the destruction of international law to be significant. The obstruction by the (at the time Opposition) Labour Party of the singular substantial parliamentary debate for a ceasefire, on 21 Feb, shows that party advantage supersedes the opportunity to further the rule of law, and very much set the tone for what we now understand will be very little more than a continuation of Conservative policies.
The slow, but intentional dilution of International Humanitarian Law has never been more apparent than through the UK Governments’ feigned concern for Palestinian life. While there was initial hope that the Labour Government would do better, their tokenistic gestures and continued apology for Israeli war crimes has left much of the British public in anger and despair. The attempt of both the previous, and current, UK Governments to rewrite the reality of the atrocity that we have witnessed for 384 days has demolished the UK’s reputation on the global stage.
Disrespect for international law has not happened passively. The UK Government’s actions suggest that innocent lives can be sacrificed for political convenience. It is no accident that the UK Government avoids using the language of International Humanitarian Law. To do so would lead it to confront the fact that its political defence of the Israeli Government does not extend to a legal one.
It appears that those who fear the consequences of international law are not the perpetrators of atrocities, but the Governments who are obliged to uphold it.
Lara Bird-Leakey works as a Senior Policy Researcher in the Houses of Parliament, at Westminster, and is on the Executive Committee of the Balfour Project. She is conducting her PhD on UK Foreign Policy and International Humanitarian Law at Kings College London. Her views are her own and not necessarily those of the Balfour Project charity.