The UK government, after almost two years of providing political cover for Israel’s genocide and more than a year directly assisting it, has announced its carefully considered conclusion that… you’ve guessed it: Israel is not committing genocide.

Israel is not committing genocide, says Labour. Really?

David Lammy, at the time Foreign Secretary, noted the government’s findings in a letter to the Chair of the Commons International Development Committee.

The conclusion handily absolves the Starmer regime of its obligations under international law to intervene in a genocide – despite Israel’s murder of approaching half a million people according to the IDF’s own data, the months-long starvation blockade, the bombing of every hospital in Gaza and the daily murder of refugees in food queues and ‘safe zones’, Lammy explained to Sarah Champion that the UK hadn’t seen anything to suggest Israel’s genocide, or even to raise ‘reasonable suspicion’:

The duty to prevent genocide under Article I of the Genocide Convention (1948) arises when the UK learns, or should normally have learned, of the existence of a serious risk of genocide. From that moment on, if we have
available the means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide or reasonably suspected of harbouring genocidal intent, the UK is under a duty to employ all means reasonably available to us to prevent genocide. This position is in line with the decision of the International of Justice (ICJ) in the case concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro, 2007).

The Government has carefully considered the risk of genocide, including when permitting exports to the F-35 global programme. The high civilian casualties, including women and children, and the extensive destruction in Gaza, are utterly appalling. Israel must do much more to prevent and alleviate the suffering that this conflict is causing. As per the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide occurs only where there is specific “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” The Government has not concluded that Israel is acting with that intent.

Lie after lie

As if to remove any doubt about exactly how disingenuous he was being, Lammy also claimed that “the UK is not ‘arming’ Israel’s war in Gaza”, though he had to admit that providing spare parts and bomb components for the bombers Israel is using to blow apart Palestinian children every night is an “exception”:

The UK is not ‘arming’ Israel’s war in Gaza. As you know, one of our first acts in government was to review and suspend export licences that might be used by the IDF in the conflict in Gaza. We have successfully implemented the suspension announced on 2 September 2024 and continue to refuse all such licence applications. As set out to Parliament, the only exception to the suspension is exports to the global F-35 programme.

The UK shipped more arms to Israel in the final three months of 2024, under the Starmer/Lammy regime, than the preceding Tory governments had sent in four years.

And Starmer is, of course, continually aiding Israel’s genocide by escalating his war on the free speech and protest rights of UK citizens.

As author Assal Rad pointed out, the opinion of a government about a genocide it is assisting is meaningless:

Assessments about genocide from governments aiding the genocide are irrelevant. Genocide scholars, UN reports, and the world’s leading human rights organizations have all concluded the same thing about Israel’s actions in Gaza.

This is nothing but genocide denial.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

This post was originally published on Canary.