It was Germany in 1945. This is Britain in 2026 and the boot is now firmly on the other foot. And that is the boot of complicity. Complicity in a genocide. Complicity in human rights violations, complicity in the illegal seizure of land, complicity concerning the destruction of property and complicity in withholding vital life-sustaining resources to a civilian population.
How much more evidence is needed before the UK government recognises that setting up trade deals with Israel is giving the Israeli government the green light to continue with its barbaric abuses of human rights and ignore countless UN decrees?
Human beings do not seem to be particularly good at learning lessons from history. It could also be that those who determine what is and what isn’t the truth shape the truth in whatever way to suit the prevailing ideology.
Do we know what is happening?
The books If This Is A Man and The Truce, written by Primo Levi, a survivor of Auschwitz, have a postscript which answers common questions. Question 2 is “Did the Germans know what was happening?”
This is the question that now needs to be asked and answered by the British people in the context of the actions of the Israeli government against the Palestinian people and their rapidly diminishing territory. Why do the British people allow successive governments to enable and facilitate trade while Israel violates human rights, in contravention of international law; law that was designed to bring people together with a common sense of purpose and justice?
The evidence demonstrates that Britain has become a beacon of hypocrisy and complicity.
Trade vs human rights
There are two key and oppositional aspects to Britain’s relationship with Israel. Firstly, the growth and significance of trade and pursuing the benefits attached to that mutual trading relationship.
Secondly, seemingly and evidently ignoring the human rights of the Palestinian people, which are under-reported by mainstream media and brushed under the political carpet.
Tax revenue from £5bn worth of trade is seemingly more important to the UK than human rights.
On 15 September 2025 the Business and Trade Sub-Committee on Economic Security, Arms and Export Controls convened to review open export licenses to Israel. The body language, the frustration apparent in the questioning to get at the truth, the failure to provide required information in a timely manner and all the ‘umm’ing meant it was nothing more than business as usual with Israel. How convenient to be able to pass the buck between one government department and another: a meeting of ducking and diving.
It is hard not to conclude from that meeting that the UK trade in arms to Israel has not been curtailed. The UK government is not being 100% open and honest. A public inquiry is needed.
The facts speak for themselves. Britain is arming a state that has been engaged in genocide and both Labour and Conservative governments have continued to facilitate this.
Conducting trade with a state known to be in breach of international humanitarian law must be one of the most contradictory, unjust and immoral acts a government can make.
Historical parallels can be drawn in countries on every continent, wherever people have been suppressed in the interests of profit from exported or imported raw materials, capital and services.
Trade at any cost cannot be justified
The organisation Physicians for Human Rights Israel has documented how Palestinians are treated in Israeli prisons. And, in mid-2021, Amnesty International issued its report, The crime of apartheid against Palestinians. Yet, despite such overwhelming evidence, the UK continues to develop trade with Israel.
In January 2022, Hansard reported “After successive record breaking years, UK-Israel trade has remained healthy, even during the pandemic, with an estimated value of £5 billion.”
Bob Blackman (Harrow East Con) said “We want to be Israel’s largest trade partner in the world,” and “Every day, Israeli businesses will be enriching and improving the lives of British citizens and making them healthier.”
While British citizens may become healthier popping whatever medication Israel supplies to the UK, Palestinians do not. Aid continues to be denied. Organisations that provide vital support are barred.
Israel’s breaches of international law
There is a long list of Israel’s international law breaches including:
- UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (1948): large scale expropriation of land, restrictions on movement;
- UN Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) prohibiting the acquisition of territory by force;
- Fourth Geneva Convention Article 49 (transfer of occupier’s population).
When has Israel ever taken heed of international law? Even under the auspices of ceasefire, people are still being targeted and killed in Lebannon and Gaza.
Is this not the continuation of a genocide by other means, including a continuation of drip-feeding medication, basic nutrition, shelter, fresh water, electricity into Gaza? Especially at this time of the year when winter storms flood tents that cannot withstand the strong cold winter windstorms, people die of hypothermia, malnutrition, and a range of readily treatable conditions.
Britain continues to seek to develop trade with Israel.
Protest may help shift the international mood
The genocide in Gaza has brought people out onto the streets in many parts of the world to demonstrate their anger and disgust at the extent of Israel’s retribution for the 7 October 2023 attack.
Fundamentally, the UK government’s stance does not appear to be any different from that taken on apartheid in the 1980s. Ironically, the new South Africa is now one of the leading protagonists seeking to have Benjamin Netanyahu and his maleficent accomplices prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Are we beginning to witness the creation of a New World Order based on justice and equality? I hope so.
Recognising the state of Palestine
Answering the question posed earlier: yes, we do know that the UK is engaged with a tyrannical state and that our government chooses not to do anything about it.
“The 1917 Balfour Declaration legitimised theft under the guise of diplomacy. Today, that legacy persists in British complicity and cowardice. It is past time to confront it.” – Palestine, Zionism and British Complicity: a constituent’s indictment by Dr Paul Kammill, 28 July 2025; Letters to the editor July to December 2025.
On 21 September 2025 the UK government recognised the state of Palestine. Can we now look forward to seeing a British Embassy in what is left of diminishing Palestinian territory? That would be a genuine act of recognition. The UK government has a moral duty to ensure human rights are not abused while continuing to strike new trade deals with Israel.
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