On 13 November, Labour Party prime minister Keir Starmer refused to call Israel’s actions in occupied Gaza a genocide. This goes against the opinions of genocide experts from Israel and elsewhere, and ignores the International Court of Justice (ICJ) finding in January that it was plausible. Starmer stressed that he was “well aware of the definition of genocide and that’s why I’ve never referred to it as genocide”.
There are a number of factors that clearly explain his silence.
Starmer has used the word genocide elsewhere…
There have long been debates over where to use the word genocide. But in the past, Starmer:
- Voted in 2016 “to refer genocide of Yazidis & Christians by Daesh to UN and ICC to start process to bring perpetrators to justice”. Daesh (Isis/Isil) killed over 5,000 people in its mass slaughter of Yazidis.
- Wrote in 2021 about China’s treatment of its Uyghur community (for which there are no apparent reports of murder, except the roughly 200 deaths during the July 2009 riots). He said he’d be working “to ensure Britain never turns a blind eye to genocide”. Also in 2021, he insisted on sending a message to the Conservatives that “genocide can never be met with indifference, impunity or inaction”.
- Marked the 2022 “anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica”, saying “we remember the 8,000 Muslim men and boys who lost their lives”. He marked the 2023 anniversary too. And in 2020, he called it an “inhuman genocide”.
Foreign secretary David Lammy had a similar record of speaking about genocide in the past. He even insisted correctly that “genocide does not start with genocide” but “with the denial of rights, attacks on truth, the rule of law and democracy”. But like Starmer, Lammy has now become very shy about the word. Like his boss, he has also insisted on avoiding the word genocide, and on minimising Israel’s crimes.
Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin proposed condemning the crime of genocide in 1944. And 80 years later, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has asserted that:
One might even say that Lemkin’s definition fits the situation in Palestine for the past 76 years.
Reading Raphael Lemkin’s original 1944 definition of genocide with Gaza in mind is a very illuminating excercise: pic.twitter.com/OKB05DQB4V
— Alonso Gurmendi (@Alonso_GD) November 4, 2024
So why was Starmer happy to use the word genocide previously, but not in 2024? What changed?
…so why not about Gaza?
It can’t be about the numbers. Because Israeli occupation forces have already killed “at least 43,712 people, including 16,765 children” in Gaza. And a study from July in medical journal The Lancet found that, if we include indirect deaths, “it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza”.
If it’s not about the number of murders, then what else could it be? Could it possibly be because, as Declassified has reported, Starmer’s “top team has accepted hundreds of thousands of pounds from pro-Israel funders”?
Or might Starmer be scared of losing power if he grows a backbone? Because he happily jumped on the bandwagon to cynically weaponise antisemitism allegations against his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, who took a firm stand against Israeli crimes in occupied Palestine. And despite kneeling before the altar of the pro-Israel lobby, Starmer still faces pressure to back Israel’s genocide even more passionately.
Perhaps the biggest reason to avoid using the word genocide, however, is that doing so would draw attention to Britain’s failure to fulfil its legal obligations to prevent such atrocities.
Admitting genocide is happening would highlight Britain’s violation of its obligations
Genocide expert Martin Shaw wrote recently that:
Political leaders themselves will avoid talking about genocide, to protect themselves not only from demands to stop it, but also from scrutiny of their complicity – Israel has been helped by RAF surveillance, British-made weapons and parts for its bombers, and diplomatic support, all of which the Starmer Government has continued.
Indeed, British governments under Starmer and Sunak have participated in Israel’s genocide via RAF flights over Gaza, and US flights from the UK’s base on Cyprus. As UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese has stressed in the Tribune:
the UK is violating its obligations under international law not to aid and assist a state which is committing international wrongdoings.
Albanese has reported on Israel’s “settler colonial genocide” in Gaza herself. And she explained Britain’s obligation to prevent that in more detail, saying in a video interview that:
In order not to violate the Genocide Convention, which contains an obligation to prevent genocide, member states need to comply with the obligation not to support a state that might be committing genocide… Member states have been put on notice that there is this risk, as of the 26th of January this year… Even if genocide had not been committed yet, because there is a risk, there is an obligation to prevent.
You’d think Keir Starmer would know this, being a human rights lawyer and all.
(@FranceskAlbs‘s comments were made in relation to the Foreign Secretary refusing to accept what is happening is genocide, just as Starmer did today) pic.twitter.com/zMCujcCH1h
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) November 13, 2024
The International Commission of Jurists has backed this idea up.
So not only is Starmer a spineless tool of the pro-genocide lobby. He’s also violating his responsibilities by continuing to support Israel’s crimes. And that’s why he’s trying to convince us that the atrocities we’re all witnessing in real time are not genocide.
Featured image via House of Commons
