Britain’s Gaza paradox: Diplomacy in the shadow of death

On 11 October this year, the day after the ceasefire in Gaza was announced, half a million people gathered in central London for the “National Demonstration for Palestine,” demanding a clear and decisive end to British military and political support for Israel.

After two years of devastation in Gaza, the ceasefire has only amplified Britain’s contradictions: the government that now talks of peace and reconstruction helped sustain the very genocide it now laments.

Those who took to London’s streets insisted that a ceasefire offers only a brief respite, not real justice.

Since 2023, the British government has stood firmly behind Israel—supplying arms, sharing intelligence, and offering unflinching rhetorical and diplomatic support. Yet, while funding and supporting the machinery of the genocide, it has continually condemned the killing of civilians in Gaza, calling on Israel to apply restraint.

While members of the Labour Party under the leadership of PM Keir Starmer voted in September to classify Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide,” the government has continued to deny its role in enabling it. This genocide, as former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn states, is “a British legacy.”

As Corbyn posted on X, “This genocide belongs to Britain too. The government’s legacy will be its complicity in one of the greatest crimes of our time.”

Recognition without responsibility

On Sept. 21, Britain drew international attention by officially recognizing the State of Palestine—a decision hailed as “historic.”

Yet that recognition proved largely symbolic, tied to conditions that Israel end its war on Gaza, agree to a ceasefire, and commit to a long-term peace plan.

The recognition felt more like a diplomatic maneuver than the acknowledgement of a long-overdue right—a point that Hussam Zomlot, Head of the Palestinian mission to the UK, highlighted powerfully in a BBC interview: “the question is ultimately not why Britain should recognize the State of Palestine, but why it did not recognize it in the first place?”

In his speech announcing Britain’s recognition of Palestine, Starmer’s condemnation of the “starvation and destruction” in Gaza drew accusations of hypocrisy and double standards: how can a government lament a genocide while continuing to support and arm its perpetrators? How can Britain denounce this tragedy without confronting its historic complicity in it?

In another post on X, Corbyn says that following Britain’s recognition of Palestine, “the UK government should recognize the genocide in Gaza, end its complicity in crimes against humanity, and stop arming Israel.”

Britain’s weapons in service of the occupation

Britain has perfected the art of moral masquerading; Starmer and other government officials have repeatedly called for restraint in Gaza and have expressed deep concern over Israel’s actions, while continuing to sign arms deals and approve deliveries of new shipments of weapons.

British complicity is not only rhetorical and political posturing but material—rooted in decades of financial support, military coordination, intelligence sharing and unwavering loyalty to Israel.

Days after the 7 October 2023 attacks, former conservative PM Rishi Sunak deployed British forces to the eastern Mediterranean in support of Israel.

According to The Guardian, the UK issued around 108 export licences for weapons to Israel between October 2023 and May 2024, many of which were used in military operations.

In September 2024 the British government announced the suspension of 30 export licences to Israel on the grounds that they “might be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law,” stating at the time that the suspension covered the sale of “items used by the Israeli Defense Forces.”

Despite calls from Human Rights Watch and other rights organisations in February 2025 for Britain to halt all arms exports to Israel immediately due to its breaches of international humanitarian law, 347 licences remained active until July 2025, 167 of them classified as “military,” according to UK government “Transparency data.”

According to this data published by the British Department for Business and Trade up to July 31, 2025, the value of military and non-military export licences to Israel runs into hundreds of millions of pounds sterling. These include items such as missile and aircraft components, targeting and radar systems, and other equipment classified under military use.

In addition to export licences and the presence of numerous companies that produce parts for weapons destined for Israel across the UK, around 15% of each F-35 fighter jet, the most advanced aircraft in Israel’s arsenal, is manufactured in Britain.

In December 2024 independent monitoring, including reports published by Declassified UK, showed that since October 2023 more than 500 shipments of F-35 components—produced as part of a consortium led by US defense firm Lockheed Martin, were sent from Britain to the US to be ultimately shipped to Israel.

Alongside military support, the UK continued to share intelligence with Israel. A Declassified UK report indicates that the Royal Air Force has conducted hundreds of spy missions over Gaza since December 2023 in support of Israel.

While these missions witnessed and documented the scale of devastation in Gaza, the UK did not deem Israel’s actions to be disproportionate, or to amount to “genocide” until September 2025.

Although the government claimed that the purpose of these spy flights was to help locate and recover Israeli hostages, Declassified highlighted a lack of transparency around the missions, raising doubts that the collected intelligence may have directly facilitated Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

Much remains shrouded in secrecy about the UK’s military and intelligence involvement in the genocide in Gaza, and this has been largely absent from mainstream media coverage.

Colonial roots at the heart of complicity

To understand Britain’s role in the genocide, we must return to its colonial roots—to a history that reveals Britain as the original architect of Palestinian dispossession and displacement.

In 1917, the document known as the “Balfour Declaration” pledged British support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, paving the way for the British Mandate and then the 1948 Nakba.

These policies essentially laid the foundations for the settler colonial system and military occupation built on exclusion and violence which continue to define the reality on the ground today.

In the aftermath of World War II, criticism of Zionism in Britain increasingly became conflated with “anti-Semitism,” providing moral cover for the establishment of the Israeli state and the silencing of Palestinian voices of dissent.

This conflation persisted for decades, and in 2016,Theresa May’s Conservative government formally adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. 

This definition blurs the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, making political opposition susceptible to being labeled as hate-speech whilst permitting the disciplining of academics and students who criticize Israel, and turning pro-Palestine advocacy into a professional risk.

A current has since emerged within UK institutions, organizations, and student movements - including at University College London—criticizing the definition and warning that it restricts academic freedom and seeks to silence solidarity with Palestinians.

The so-called “anti-Semitism crisis” played a key role in Jeremy Corbyn’s political downfall in 2020. As one of the most prominent pro-Palestinian voices in government, he faced allegations of “anti-Semitism” that were used as ammunition to suspend him from the Labour Party—a move many have since condemned as, in part, punishment for his criticism of Israel.

Despite growing censorship and the repression of pro-Palestine activism under the guise of combating “anti-Semitism,” the genocide in Gaza has deepened public understanding of the crucial distinction between criticism of Israel or Zionism and hostility towards Jewish people for their faith.

Silencing solidarity and criminalizing protest 

Since Oct. 2023, Britain has witnessed an unprecedented wave of protest and solidarity with Palestine—through marches, vigils, and direct-action campaigns—demanding an end to the government’s complicity in the genocide. Among the most prominent of these movements is Palestine Action, founded in 2020 by activists Huda Ammori and Richard Bernard.

The group has targeted companies complicit in the Israeli military occupation and genocide that have bases in the UK, including arms manufacturers such as Elbit Systems and Lockheed Martin.

In August 2024 activists from the group stormed and vandalized Elbit Systems’ Bristol base, and in June 2025 they infiltrated RAF Brize Norton, covering military aircraft with red paint.

The government was quick to respond. Then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper proposed a bill to ban the movement under the Terrorism Act 2000, making membership of or support for it a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

The bill passed through both the Commons and the Lords and came into force on 5 July. Proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation granted British authorities the power to arrest anyone publicly declaring membership. This sparked a wave of anger and was seen as a turning point in the erosion of free expression in Britain.

The UK-based activist group ‘Defend Our Juries’ organised seven protests in London and other UK cities in response to the ban, resulting in more than 2,100 arrests between July and Oct. 2025. Protesters, many of whom were elderly or disabled, were arrested simply for holding placards reading “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.” Amnesty International has condemned the situation as “deeply concerning.”

As of October 2025, 138 of those arrested have been tried and charged with supporting Palestine Action. Journalist, Owen Jones, captured the hypocrisy of the moment when he posed a powerful question in The Guardian: “How will future generations judge us, when politicians accuse those protesting genocide of inciting hatred while they support those committing it?”

From criminalizing those who protest against genocide while actively contributing to sustaining it, to PM Keir Starmer announcing Britain’s recognition of the State of Palestine just days after being photographed shaking hands with Israeli President Isaac Herzog outside Downing Street, the hypocrisy of this government is already etched into national memory.

Yet as the government continues to align itself with the perpetrators of genocide and a settler-colonial regime, its streets tell a different story—one of solidarity with Palestine, rejection of Israel’s actions, and growing public pressure.

As the contradictions and hypocrisy defining Britain’s approach to Palestine become ever clearer, the question remains: how many more lives must be lost before it confronts its own complicity in this genocide?