Calls for Action

For our government, the arrest warrants alone should be enough to compel a tough response.

But the ICC’s arrest warrants are not the only recent major legal development regarding Israel’s repeated ripping up of the rules of international law. This summer, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world’s top court, ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal.

This landmark ruling called for the occupation to be brought rapidly to an end and for Israel to dismantle its settlements, provide full reparations to Palestinian victims and facilitate the return of displaced people.

It also declared that all states — including the UK — are obligated not to provide any aid or assistance or engage in any trade or investment that helps to maintain Israel’s unlawful presence there.

Yet in the face of these pivotal developments from the two most important courts in the world, there is a real danger that many governments will outright reject their findings or simply ignore their responsibilities to enact them.

Others will respond, at best, with their usual calls for a ceasefire. Such calls increasingly now appear to be nothing more than a ritual, undertaken by governments without any real expectation that Israel will end its war on the people of Gaza or face any consequences if it doesn’t.

When Israel faces no consequences for its repeated war crimes in Gaza or flagrant violations of international law, it is emboldened to escalate further. In one clear example, as I write, Israeli forces have invaded Syrian territory seizing more land even beyond the occupied Golan Heights, which it now declares will remain part of Israel ‘for eternity’ in an outright disregard of UN Resolutions.

Any state genuinely seeking to force Israel to end its war crimes and respect international law must take action. And that means sanctions.

Call for Sanctions

That is why I recently coordinated a letter to the Foreign Secretary with my colleague Imran Hussain MP, supported by over 60 Parliamentarians from seven political parties, urging the UK Government to impose comprehensive sanctions on Israel.

Such action is urgently needed. It is simply not legally or morally defensible for our government to continue with a ‘business as usual’ approach to Israel. How can it be justifiable to continue exporting fighter jet parts used to kill Palestinian children to an Israeli leader charged with crimes against humanity? How can our government proceed with plans to deepen trade links with a state charged with illegally occupying another nation?

Our letter to the Foreign Secretary specifically focuses on four areas of sanctions:

• Suspending all arms transfers to Israel, including licenses for the export of parts for F-35 fighter jets that are currently delivered to Israel via third countries.
• Travel bans and asset freezes against all individuals and entities involved in maintaining the illegal occupation.
• A boycott of any trade with illegal Israeli settlements. The British government has already acknowledged these settlements are unlawful, so why allow trade with them?
• Revoking the 2030 Roadmap: this special UK partnership with Israel seeks to deepen economic, trade, and security ties. How on earth would it be unacceptable to do that with a state faced with serious allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide?

Additionally, the letter calls for a comprehensive review of all trade, security, military, and diplomatic relations to ensure they comply with the ICJ findings. Such a review would likely reveal the need for even broader sanctions to ensure compliance with international law.

The United Nations General Assembly itself has endorsed this approach, emphasising in a vote in September that sanctions are necessary to compel Israel to comply with international law and halt its crimes against the Palestinian people.

Sanctions are simply a question of political will. As a Palestinian lawyer told a recent meeting of MPs that I organised in parliament, ‘Britain knows how to organise tough sanctions, just look how quickly it imposed them on Russia over Ukraine.’ Why should the same approach not be taken with Israel?

Defending Global Justice

The most pressing priority remains securing a ceasefire that saves lives, ends the unbearable suffering of the Palestinian people being live-streamed day after day, and creates a space to deliver justice for the Palestinian people while holding all perpetrators of war crimes to account.

But the Palestinian cause has also become a wider battle. It is a fight to defend the integrity of international justice and human rights law.

Allowing Israel to flout international law without consequences, as some governments have indicated in the aftermath of the ICC arrest warrants, sends a very dangerous signal.

A world where such war crimes are tolerated, where international rules are applied selectively and only to those deemed opponents — and not to allies — is a world where anarchy trumps international law. It makes for a much more volatile world.

By imposing widespread sanctions on Israel and making it clear it cannot get away with trampling all over international law, our government would be taking a stance and sending a powerful message: no state, no matter its alliances, is above international law.

Every day we fail to act, the double standards become more glaring and more unacceptable.

The ICC’s arrest warrants and the ICJ’s ruling provide a clear mandate for action. The time for words has passed; now is the time for widespread sanctions.