MEND statement on UK government Palestine actions

MEND commends the new Labour government for earlier reinstating UK government funding to UNRWA. We also commend them on removing the Conservative Government initiated objection to the ICC’s application for arrest warrants for Israeli war criminals. We further welcome reports that the government intends to stop offensive arms sales to Israel. However, we believe these measures do not go far enough and should go further. As next steps we recommend:

1. ALL weapons sales should stop to Israel because it is carrying out a genocide on the people of Palestine. Dual use of weapons can never be discounted.
2. The government should recognise the state of Palestine
3. The Government should accept that Israel is plausibly committing a genocide, in line with the ICJ ruling.
4. Sanctions should be applied to Israel until it stops all violations in the OPT, brings to justice all war criminals, releases all Palestinian prisoners (hostages) and removes all apartheid conditions from the Palestinian people.

We also commend all those who campaigned and/or voted for Independents and third-party anti-genocide candidates at the general election. We also thank all those hundreds of thousands of people who have been relentlessly protesting against the genocide and holding politicians of both main parties to account for their shocking support for Israel’s military bombardment and destruction of Gaza.

We do not believe these changes would have come without this electoral pressure and popular support for the Palestinian cause.