Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have blocked entrances to the Foreign Office in London in protest at the perceived failure of the new Labour government to do more to change UK policy towards Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
As many as 300 people sealed off access to the Foreign Office on Wednesday morning with a large banner saying “Genocide Made in Britain”. Protesters said six demonstrators had been arrested.
Workers for a Free Palestine, which organised the protest, said the aim was to make the foreign secretary, David Lammy, practise what he preached in opposition, and meet his own demands by publishing legal advice on UK arms to Israel.
A Workers for a Free Palestine activist said that if the advice “confirms Israel has breached international law as the shadow foreign minister, Alicia Kearns, says it does – the government should immediately halt arms exports to Israel”. They also called for the withdrawal of the legal attempt to block the international criminal court (ICC) issuing an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The disruptive, direct action protest was also aimed at backing those Labour and opposition MPs calling for a ban on arms sales in the Commons, as well as in solidarity with Public and Commercial Services Union members in the Foreign Office and Department of Business and Trade.
Lammy, who has begun a trip to India, has been accused of sitting on his hands over the continued licensing of UK arms exports to Israel, as well as failing to confirm whether the UK would arrest Netanyahu if he came to Britain after an ICC warrant was issued.
Interviewed on BBC Radio on Tuesday, the cabinet minister Liz Kendall evaded answering if the Labour government would publish the official legal advice on whether there was a risk that British arms exports to the Israel Defense Forces could be used in Gaza in violation of international humanitarian law.
Labour in opposition had pressed the previous government to publish the legal advice. Lammy said he was not allowed to see legal advice given to previous governments, and that he had initiated his own quasi-judicial process. “I want my deliberations to be as transparent as possible,” he said.
So far, Labour has reversed only one plank of policy towards Gaza, announcing that the UK would be restoring funding to the Palestinian relief works agency Unrwa.
A source at the protest on Wednesday said: “It is clear after a fortnight that the government could have acted by now, but is instead prevaricating as hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza die. Labour talks about due process, but the people of Gaza cannot wait. Palestinians are demanding answers now.”
Workers for a Free Palestine has organised other blockades, with thousands of workers and trade unionists shutting down arms factories across the UK. On May Day this year, the group organised a protest at the Department of Business and Trade in which every entrance to the building was blocked, resulting in it being closed and staff instructed not to come into the office that day.
Lammy has indicated that he may allow arms sales to continue if they are classified as for Israel’s defensive use, against groups including Hamas or Hezbollah, as opposed to offensive use in Gaza, a distinction that some say is very hard to define.
The human rights barrister Geoffrey Robertson also urged the government to clarify its stance on the legal challenge being mounted by the UK over the ICC’s jurisdictional rights in Palestine in light of the landmark ruling by the international court of justice (ICJ) last Friday on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
Roberston said the UK’s argument that the Oslo accords prevent the ICC from indicting Netanyahu and any other Israeli – but not Palestinians – has been blown out of the water by the ICJ’s ruling
In dealing with arguments about the Oslo accords, the court said: “The court considers that the Oslo accords cannot be understood to detract from Israel’s obligations under the rules of international law applicable in occupied Palestinian territory.”
In a later paragraph, the ICJ said “Israel may not rely on the Oslo accords to exercise jurisdiction in the occupied Palestinian territory in a manner at variance with its obligations under the law of occupation”.
Robertson said: “In light of these rulings, it is hard to see how the UK’s argument can succeed. The ICJ has the last word on international law and it clearly indicates that the Oslo accords cannot overcome the right of the ICC to prosecute the Israelis for crimes against humanity (starvation and indiscriminate bombing) committed in Gaza.
“It would make the government look foolish to make an argument on the international legal stage that is so evidently wrong and runs counter to the ICJ’s ruling. While the deadline is on Friday, the Foreign Office’s lawyers could ask for an adjournment so they can read and analyse the ICJ’s ruling in detail.”
