“For decades, the US and UK have enabled Israel’s military aggression and apartheid policies. Yet international legal and political efforts are challenging Israel’s impunity and exposing fractures within Western alliances.”
By Ben Folley
For more than a century, the Palestinian question has defined Middle Eastern politics, leaving devastation in its wake. At its heart is the displacement of Palestinians, many living as refugees for generations, denied a state and subjected to Israeli military control.
Around six million Palestinians remain permanently displaced, their homeland occupied, their movements restricted. In Gaza and the West Bank, Israeli policies have enforced military checkpoints, separation barriers, and economic suppression. Gaza – walled off since Israel withdrew its settlers in 2005 – has been devastated by military assaults, most recently in the offensive launched in October 2023.
The sheer scale of destruction in Gaza is staggering. For its two million residents, the majority of buildings, including health and sanitation facilities, have been damaged or destroyed. Nearly the entire population has been repeatedly displaced, left without sufficient water, food, or aid, while tens of thousands of civilians have been killed.
Israel’s government, backed militarily and diplomatically by the US, officially endorses a ceasefire yet continues to tighten its grip on aid supplies while reports of killings by Israeli forces persist. At the same time, settlement expansion in the West Bank has accelerated, while right-wing political forces push for the mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has emboldened these hardliners. His assertion that Palestinians should leave Gaza, paired with rhetoric portraying the enclave as a potential luxury riviera development, underscores the complete disregard for Palestinian rights. Reports that Israel and the US are negotiating with war-torn African nations to accept displaced Gazans reveal the extent of this agenda.
US support for Israel remains unwavering. Since the late 1960s, Washington has provided Israel with around $150 billion in military aid, over $90 billion of it committed since 2000. Emergency funding for the most recent war alone topped $14 billion, supplying precision-guided munitions, air defence systems and artillery. These weapons have not only been used in Gaza and the West Bank but also in attacks on targets in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran.
Beyond its military support, the US has fostered the decline of pan-Arab nationalism, facilitating the normalisation of ties between Arab states and Israel through initiatives like Trump’s Abraham Accords, and maintained strategic alliances in the region. While its military aid to Egypt and Jordan is less extensive than to Israel, it remains significant.
At the UN, the US has repeatedly shielded Israel from accountability, vetoing dozens of Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli actions. The UK, too, has played an inconsistent role. While Labour has nominally suspended the direct sale of arms that could be used in Gaza, it remains integral to Israel’s F-35 fighter jet supply chain and has made no move with partner nations to halt sales to Israel. RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus continues to facilitate UK surveillance flights for Israel and the shipment of US arms, while British ministers avoid addressing these concerns in Parliament.
The UK government’s response to accusations of genocide has been dismissive. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has stated, “I have never described what is going on in Gaza as genocide,” while Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s remark that genocide is “largely used when millions of people lost their lives” was widely condemned for misrepresenting its legal definition.
With Palestine solidarity demonstrations in the UK reaching unprecedented levels of support despite government-driven smears, Labour’s election on the smallest share of the vote of any winning party since 1945 was undoubtedly hit by its unwillingness to urge a ceasefire in the months before it.
Human rights groups and legal experts have denounced Israeli actions as collective punishment, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Accusations of genocide are gaining traction, with many arguing that the destruction in Gaza meets the criteria outlined in the Genocide Convention.
International pressure is mounting. A coalition of states, spanning socialist governments to social democracies and supporters of human rights, is pushing for stronger measures. The UN General Assembly has reaffirmed its support for a ceasefire and an end to Israeli occupation. In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion declaring Israeli settlements and the West Bank separation wall illegal, calling for an end to the occupation within a year.
South Africa has taken decisive legal action, filing a genocide case at the ICJ in December 2023. This case has drawn backing from Global South nations such as Cuba, Colombia, and Bolivia, as well as European states including Spain, Norway, and Ireland. Leading human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have published reports asserting that Israeli actions in Gaza could constitute genocide.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been investigating alleged war crimes in Palestine since 2021. In a landmark move, it issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The reaction was swift: the US and Israel condemned the decision, with Washington imposing sanctions on ICC officials.
In January 2025, nine nations formed the Hague Group to coordinate legal, diplomatic, and economic measures against Israel. They are advocating measures akin to the UN-led arms embargo imposed on apartheid South Africa in 1977.
For decades, the US and UK have enabled Israel’s military aggression and apartheid policies. Yet international legal and political efforts are challenging Israel’s impunity and exposing fractures within Western alliances. The increasing recognition of Israeli policies as genocide marks a shift in global discourse. Whether this translates into concrete change remains uncertain, but public and legal opinion is shifting—and with it, the future of the Palestinian struggle. For those of us in the UK, directing the demands of the solidarity movement on to the government of the day remains vital.
- There will be three sessions on Palestine at the ‘Socialism or Barbarism’ Dayschool hosted by Arise Festival in central London on March 29th. Register and find out more here.
- Ben Folley is a volunteer organiser for Arise Festival, you can follow him on Twitter/X and on Bluesky.
- You can follow Arise Festival on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Spotify and YouTube – and see all upcoming events here.
- This article was originally published by Labour Hub on 19 March, written before the latest devastating attack on Gaza, which killed more than 400 Palestinians.
