The UK, French and Canadian governments – have discovered a limit to their tolerance of moral atrocities. Weeks after leading NGOS and the UN have been warning of famine in Gaza and weeks after images started appearing in the media of starving children the civilised world of humanitarian liberal principles has finally started to realise that this is bad for their image:
We will not stand by while the Netanyahu Government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response. [1]
“further” concrete actions seems a little generous to themselves. At least as far as Starmer goes. His government has limited some weapons export licenses but is currently fighting to maintain some in a UK Court where they are brazenly arguing that there is no genocide in Gaza. [2] That is it, for “concrete actions”.
They do seem to have grasped that “deeply concerned” looks unconvincing when faced with the obvious programme of ethnic cleansing and mass war crimes being carried out by Israel in Gaza – and the West Bank.
Will they actually do anything concrete? They have many levers – arms supply, trade, diplomatic, research links could all be leveraged to put actual pressure on Israel. Will we see any serious pressure? I doubt we will until the Mediterranean actually turns completely red with the blood of Palestinian children.
Notes
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/may/19/gaza-israel-aid-war-latest-live-news?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with%3Ablock-682b661b8f08333fc4dafc15#block-682b661b8f08333fc4dafc15
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/13/no-evidence-of-genocide-in-gaza-uk-lawyers-say-in-arms-export-case