IHRC has written to the PM to express our concerns about the government’s response to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians and its increasingly belligerent actions taking the region to the brink of a major war.

Yesterday, in a joint statement with the leaders of France and Germany and in a call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, PM Starmer urged Iran to refrain from retaliating for the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.

According to the letter, the response highlights all that has been wrong in Britain’s stand on the genocide in Gaza and its fallout.

Instead of reacting to Israel’s violation of Iran’s sovereignty in carrying out the extra-judicial and extra-territorial assassination of Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran on 31 July, with international outrage and sanctions against Israel, the PM has joined a wave of demands calling on Iran to de-escalate.

“Such calls are an abnegation of responsibility and international law. They are a diabolical example of “blaming the victims” and western exceptionalism. You do not stop a bully by asking its victims to submit to him. You demand the bully stop his aggression,” says the letter.

By appeasing Israel, the PM is simply showing the Zionist state a green light to attack sovereign states with impunity. And while PM Starmer talks about giving peace a chance, his government continues to provide diplomatic cover and military support to Israel to continue its pogrom against the Palestinians in Gaza.

It is clear that having failed to achieve its military objectives in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine, Israel is now trying to pull western powers into a wider regional war. Netanyahu craves a wider, zero-sum, war pitting the Muslim world against the West. It is Britain’s duty to stop him, not assist him in his megalomaniacal crusade.

Since the genocide started last October, millions of Britons have marched on our streets to try and apply pressure on Britain and other governments to put a stop to it. However, that central demand, which is shared by the majority of the country and echoed by the International Court of Justice, has fallen on deaf ears.

It is high time that our government stepped up to fulfil its international and moral responsibility and provide protection for the Palestinians instead of legitimising Israeli war crimes and asking the targets of Israel’s belligerence to be passive victims.

[ENDS]

For more information or comment please contact the Press Office on (+44) 208 904 0222  or (+44) 7958 522196 or email media@ihrc.org