You always think things cannot get any worse for the Palestinians. But every year they do. It is fifteen years since Israel last allowed a UK parliamentary delegation into the Gaza Strip through the border crossing it controlled. The worst military assault yet experienced by the people of Gaza had ended just a month or so before. The devastation it had left made those of us on the delegation think that what we saw was as bad as it gets. We were wrong. It came nowhere near the horrors that Gaza has been going through for the past year.
Can it really get even worse in 2025? All the signs are that, with Trump’s victory in the USA emboldening the most extreme right-wing government in Israel’s history, the answer is yes. The question for the rest of the international community, and particularly, Britain’s Labour government, is whether they are willing to do anything in practice to stop it.
Just this week, Bezalel Smotrich, the Netanyahu Cabinet’s Finance Minister, declared that, following Trump’s elections, he has ordered officials to prepare to convert Israel’s 57 year occupation of the West Bank into full annexation during 2025.
“I intend, with God’s help, to lead a government decision that says that the government of Israel will work with the new administration of President Trump and the international community to apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria,” he said.
The Geneva Conventions and successive UN Security Council resolutions have confirmed that military occupation places legal obligations on occupying powers, including prohibitions on declarations of sovereignty and colonization by civilians from the occupying power. As recently as July this year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the most senior court in the world, ruled that the policies and methods used by Israel have rendered unlawful its entire occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, along with its associated settlement regime, annexation and use of natural resources.
Why, then, is Smotrich so confident that Israel will get the green light from Washington for the blatant breach of international law that he threatened this week?
For the answer, just take a look at the team President-elect Trump has put in charge of his Middle East Desk.
Appointed to be US Ambassador to Israel is former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee, a figure on the evangelical Christan Right of the Republican Party who has declared:
“There is no such thing as the West Bank – it’s Judea and Samaria…There is no such thing as settlements – they’re communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities. There is no such thing as an occupation.”
Trump’s choice for Secretary of State, meanwhile, is Senator Marco Rubio, who has explicitly rejected calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and backed Israel’s decision earlier this year to attack Rafah where over a million displaced Palestinian civilians were taking refuge. Indeed, he even compared President Biden’s opposition to an attack on Rafah to asking allied forces to stay out of Berlin in World War Two.
US Ambassador designate to the UN, Elise Stefanik, and Trump’s nominated “special envoy” to the Middle east, Steven C Witkoff, are also known to have hawkishly pro-Israel views.
If the second Trump Presidency means either tacit or explicit endorsement of some of the most extreme actions yet seen in Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. How should Britain’s Labour government respond?
To his credit, Middle East minister Hamish Falconer this week condemned Smotrich’s threat to annex the West Bank and both the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary continue to insist that international law must be an enduring bedrock for UK foreign policy under Labour.
But words are not enough and it can no longer be business as usual. While President Biden has been in the White House, Britain’s incoming Labour government has more or less followed US leadership in Middle East policy.
Even though Biden administration’s calls for restraint have been routinely ignored by Netanyahu over the past year, Keir Starmer appears to have taken the view that acting in lock step with the US administration was still Britain’s best chance of having any influence over the course of events.
All those bets are now off. If the USA no longer even pays lip service to respect for international law, Britain and like-minded allies have a responsibility to uphold the law themselves without fear or favour, with demonstrable consequences for those who flout it.
And internation law is clear about what our responsibilities are.
In ruling that Israel must end its occupation within twelve months, the ICJ has also declared that all UN member states have “an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” and “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence…”
The UK government says it accepts the central findings of the ICJ ruling so that must be reflected in its actions. Banning UK trade with settlements and other commercial complicity with the occupation – as Ireland is currently considering – would be an obvious first step and a clear demonstration that we are serious.
Similarly, in endorsing Hamish Falconer’s condemnation of Israel’s threat to annex the West Bank as illegal under international law, Britain should make clear that our commitment to Palestinian self-determination is no less resolute than our commitment to the right of the people of Israel to self determination and sovereignty within Israel’s internationally recognized borders.
We can demonstrate our respect for Palestinian sovereignty on land illegally occupied by Israel since 1967 by recognizing the State of Palestine. In doing so we would join the majority of UN member states – and most recently Ireland, Norway and Spain. The time to do it is now.
And when it comes to the humanitarian catastrophe that continues to unfold in Gaza, we have to show that wringing our hands is simply not good enough. Over 43,000 human beings have been killed there over the past year, mainly by Israeli military bombs, bullets, shells and missiles, Two million people across the Strip are denied access to the food, medicines and other humanitarian aid they need. In the north of Gaza people face nothing less than deliberate starvation and ethnic cleansing as weapons of war.
Keir Starmer continues to resist using the term “genocide” to describe what is going on in Gaza.The fact is, though, that the charge of genocide by Israel is precisely what the ICJ is now investigating. The ICJ has also made clear that it is not sufficient to simply judge whether or not genocide has been committed after the slaughter it is investigating has already taken place.
Its rulings this year say that the Palestinians have a right to expect protection now from the risk of genocide. It has therefore ordered “provisional measures” to be put in place to protect civilians and to halt military action that could potentially constitute war crimes,
The court’s requirement to act on the risk of genocide while investigations continue places immediate obligations on all UN member states, not only on Israel.
There are a range of actions which the member states could take to comply with their obligations under the ICJ ruling, with the most obvious being in relation to the supply of weapons.
Even before July’s ICJ ruling, Britain’s own arms export laws and the provisions of the international Arms Trade Treaty precluded the granting of export licences in cases where there is a known risk of weapons or components being used in breach of International Humanitarian Law.
In recognition of those rules, Labour ministers suspended thirty arms export licences to Israel in September. Doing so halted the supply of UK-made components for F16 aircraft bombing civilians in Gaza. But the UK still licences the export of components which allow F35 aircraft to do precisely the same thing. Those exports must stop. Britain’s legal obligations must be upheld without exception in the Middle East as much as anywhere else. That can only mean suspending UK arms export licences to Israel in all cases where there is a known risk of their being used in contravention of the Geneva Conventions.
It would be foolish to pretend that the UK has the power to exercise anything like the leverage over Israel that the USA can employ if it was willing to do so. History will judge the Biden Administration harshly for failing to put any effective pressure on the Netanyahu government to save lives, bring the hostages home and secure a just and sustainable peace.
But understanding that the UK is not in the same position as the USA is different from claiming that Britain and other allies have no means of exerting any influence at all. With a new administration in the White House not even paying lip service to international law or the right of Palestinians – and now the Lebanese too– to be treated with common humanity, we have a responsibility to employ every lever we have to uphold the law.
That has got to mean actions, not only words.
And it means acting fast.
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