David Lammy Denies Gaza Genocide – And It’s Blowing Up in His Face

Right, so Britain’s Foreign Office has always had a gift for legal acrobatics, especially where it comes to Israel, but David Lammy’s parting shot as Foreign Secretary belongs in a circus ring. With one hand he solemnly recited the International Court of Justice’s ruling that states must act when genocide is a serious risk; with the other, he declared Israel isn’t committing genocide at all. It was less a defence of law than a lawyer’s conjuring trick: now you see the duty, now you don’t. Meanwhile, Britain kept F-35 parts flowing into Israel’s war machine, surveillance flights humming out of Cyprus, and the red carpet ready for Israel’s President Isaac Herzog has been rolled out, arriving today as he is at time of writing. For a government led by two human rights lawyers, Lammy and Keir Starmer, it is a performance so hypocritical it borders on parody — except the punchline is written in famine and mass graves that apparently they’re still prepared to deny the illegalities of.
Right, so in one of his final acts as Foreign Secretary, David Lammy wrote to Sarah Champion MP, chair of the International Development Committee, to set out the government’s official view on Israel’s war in Gaza. He declared, with studied solemnity, that the United Kingdom would “always stand up for domestic and international law.” Yet the very substance of his letter denied that Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to genocide. Lammy accepted that the civilian devastation was “utterly appalling,” but argued that the government had not concluded Israel was acting with genocidal intent. In doing so, he both contradicted and hollowed out the binding judgments of the International Court of Justice itself. David Lammy, of all people, thinks he knows better.
The ICJ had already ruled in January, and again in May of last year, that South Africa’s genocide case against Israel was plausible and that Israel must take provisional measures to prevent genocidal acts, enable humanitarian aid, and punish incitement. Under the Genocide Convention, once a serious risk of genocide is established, all states parties — including the United Kingdom — are under a duty to prevent it. By denying that any such plausibility existed, 18 months after the ICJ first determined the plausibility of it, Lammy was not merely misstating the law. He was disowning Britain’s obligations under the very treaty it helped draft in the aftermath of the Holocaust. That’s some optics you’ve raised there Dave.
The timing of all this just underlines the grotesqueness further. As Lammy’s letter was being circulated, the UK government was still allowing components for the F-35 fighter jet programme to flow to Israel, even though those jets have been central to the devastation of Gaza. The RAF base at Akrotiri in Cyprus has continued to serve as a staging post for British surveillance flights, some coordinated with Israel. And Keir Starmer, himself a former human rights lawyer like Lammy, prepared to host Israeli President Isaac Herzog in London as of today -Herzog being the same man who declared in October 2023 that “an entire nation is responsible” for the Hamas attack, effectively justifying collective punishment of Gaza’s civilians. There are no innocents.
So under Starmer and Lammy Britain insists it stands for law, but in practice it is standing squarely against the very court, treaty, and principles that emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948, defines genocide as certain acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. These acts include killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about their destruction, imposing measures to prevent births, and forcibly transferring children. The convention was designed not only to criminalise genocide but also to impose a duty of prevention and punishment on all state parties.
The International Court of Justice has clarified this duty in its jurisprudence. In its 2007 judgment in Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro, the Court ruled that Serbia had failed to prevent the Srebrenica massacre. The key principle laid down was that the duty to prevent genocide arises the moment a state knows, or should have known, of the existence of a serious risk. The obligation is to employ all means reasonably available to the state to prevent genocide, proportionate to the state’s capacity to influence the perpetrators. Importantly, the Court did not require a finding of guilt before the duty to prevent arose. It required only the existence of a serious risk.
This standard was reaffirmed again in the ICJ’s provisional measures order in The Gambia v. Myanmar case that began in 2019. In that case, concerning the treatment of the Rohingya population, the Court found that The Gambia’s claim under the Genocide Convention was plausible and ordered Myanmar to take provisional measures. Once again, the plausibility of genocide, not a final finding, was sufficient to trigger obligations.
The United Kingdom itself intervened in that case alongside Canada, France, Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands, affirming the broad reading of the duty to prevent. Britain insisted then that plausibility was enough, that international law must act at the stage of risk rather than after the fact. It is this record that makes Britain’s denial of plausibility in Gaza all the more indefensible now.
On 26 January 2024, in South Africa v. Israel, the ICJ ruled that South Africa’s case was plausible. It found that Palestinians in Gaza constituted a protected group under the convention, that acts alleged by South Africa fell within the definition of genocide, and that statements by Israeli officials lent weight to the plausibility of genocidal intent. The Court noted the scale of destruction, the high civilian casualties, and the blockade of essentials like food, water and fuel. It ordered Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts, to ensure humanitarian aid, to punish incitement, and to preserve evidence.
On 24 May 2024, the Court issued a further order in response to Israel’s offensive against Rafah. It highlighted the worsening humanitarian crisis and the risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian group in Gaza. The order made clear that the risk had intensified and that Israel must halt actions that could bring about the group’s destruction in whole or in part.
These orders are binding. They are not recommendations but judicial rulings from the world’s highest court. For Britain to claim, as Lammy has just done, that Israel is not acting with genocidal intent is to contradict the Court directly. The ICJ did not find final guilt, but it did find plausibility — and plausibility is enough to impose obligations. By denying that plausibility, Britain has shredded its duty to prevent.
The devastation in Gaza since October 2023 is unparalleled in recent decades. By the beginning of this month, United Nations data indicated that almost 65,000 Palestinians had been killed, including more than 19,000 children and they are just the official figures not counted the 10% of the population that is totally unaccounted for. Over 80 per cent of the population had been displaced, with vast swathes of Gaza’s housing, schools, universities, hospitals, mosques and infrastructure reduced to rubble. In Gaza City the tallest buildings are now being destroyed. These are not collateral statistics. They are the measure of a population being ground down deliberately.
The humanitarian situation is defined not only by killings but by starvation. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification declared famine in northern Gaza. By the beginning of this year, famine spread across much of the territory, with virtually all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people facing acute food insecurity. United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food Michael Fakhri stated plainly in March of last year that “Israel is starving Gaza.” We knew all that time ago. Human Rights Watch published detailed findings in December 2023 documenting Israel’s use of starvation even then as a weapon of war, calling it a war crime, which of course it is.
The deliberate nature of the starvation campaign was underscored by the so-called Flour Massacre of February 2024, when Israeli forces opened fire on civilians waiting in line for food aid, killing over one hundred people. UN experts described this as part of a systematic strategy of using starvation as a tool of war. Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, issued a report to the Human Rights Council in March 2024 titled Anatomy of a Genocide. She concluded there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to genocide, including mass killings, infliction of destructive living conditions, and forcible displacement.
The evidence is not confined to NGOs or rapporteurs either. It is recognised by the ICJ itself. That is why Lammy’s denial is so grave: the government has access to all the same data, all the same reports, and the same judicial rulings, yet chooses to declare that Israel lacks genocidal intent. To claim this in the face of such evidence is not legal reasoning. It is denial — and denial in the face of mass death is complicity.
Genocide is defined not just by acts but by intent. Intent is notoriously difficult to prove, but it can be inferred from patterns of conduct and from official statements. In Gaza, both are abundant, because Israel basically brags about it.
In October 2023, the then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant declared, “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.” In November 2023, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu suggested that dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza was “one option,” later backtracking under pressure. Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the biblical injunction to destroy Amalek, an ancient enemy, which is widely understood as a call for extermination. President Isaac Herzog himself declared on 12 October 2023 that “an entire nation is responsible” for Hamas’s attack, erasing the distinction between combatants and civilians and he’s getting the red carpet treatment today here in the UK.
These statements are not slips of the tongue. They are the ideological drumbeat of a campaign waged against an entire population. Combined with the systematic starvation and mass displacement, they provide strong grounds for inferring genocidal intent. That is precisely what the ICJ meant when it described plausibility 18 months ago.
So for the UK government, here and now, to dismiss all of this as insufficient is not a sober judgment. It is sick. Lammy’s claim that Britain had “not concluded” Israel was acting with intent is laughable when senior officials are boasting of collective punishment. The denial crumbles under the weight of evidence.
Britain’s denial is further undermined by its material role in arming Israel. In September 2024, a year ago now, following internal review, the UK suspended thirty export licences for arms to Israel. This appeared to show caution, but it was a partial measure. Britain continued to allow the export of components into the F-35 fighter jet programme, in which British companies produce fifteen per cent of every aircraft.
The House of Commons Library briefing makes clear that these are not marginal parts. They include avionics, lift systems, fuselage sections, and ejection seats. Without them, the F-35 cannot function. Israel has used F-35s extensively in its bombardment of Gaza.
Lammy, in his letter, argued that because the components were supplied into a global programme, and not directly to Israel, Britain was not “arming Israel.” This is not legal reasoning. It is sophistry bordering on parody. To claim supplying 15 per cent of Israel’s frontline warplane is not arming them is a fiction so thin it mocks Britain’s own export law. The Consolidated Arms Export Criteria prohibits exports where there is a clear risk they might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law. The risk is not only clear; it is happening nightly in Gaza’s skies. The only reason we are still delivering these parts is because the US ‘Special Relationship’ one sided as that is, depends on it.
This denial is not clever by Lammy, it is cowardly. Britain is arming Israel, and Lammy’s attempt to say otherwise only exposes the contradiction more vividly.
The Bosnia v. Serbia judgment provides a framework. The Court found Serbia responsible for failing to prevent genocide at Srebrenica because it knew of the risk, had means to act, and failed to use them and I bring this up again, because Lammy in his letter even quoted this case. So now apply this to Britain.
Britain has knowledge. The ICJ’s orders of January and May 2024, the famine reports, the UN experts’ warnings, and the casualty figures make the risk undeniable. Britain has means. It controls arms export licences, contributes vital parts to the F-35s, maintains a military base in Cyprus with surveillance capacity, something it has very much been using in Israel’s favour and wields diplomatic weight as a permanent Security Council member. And yet Britain has failed to act. It suspended a handful of licences while maintaining the critical flow of parts, has now denied the plausibility of genocide, and is hosting Israel’s President from today.
That sequence — knowledge, means, failure — is precisely what constituted a breach of the duty to prevent in the Bosnia case. Britain is in the same position. Its denial does not shield it. It convicts it.
David Lammy has now been replaced as Foreign Secretary by Yvette Cooper. But the policy remains the same, because the ultimate responsibility lies with Keir Starmer. Cooper’s record as Home Secretary, where she pushed to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation despite judicial criticism of the government’s protest laws, suggests she will not diverge from the pro-Israel line, she is in fact probably even more pro-Israel than Lammy is.
Starmer’s silence on Lammy’s denial is also telling. A human rights lawyer by training, he knows the jurisprudence. His failure to correct Lammy’s misapplication is tacit endorsement. The meeting with Herzog compounds that endorsement. In effect, Starmer has traded the credibility of British law for a handshake photo opportunity.
The government may hope its denial can shield it, but the blowback has already begun. The government’s position as a denial of genocide, has prompted widespread criticism from international lawyers. Hundreds of British barristers and academics have signed open letters warning that the UK risks complicity. NGOs including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have pointed to the continued F-35 supply as evidence Britain is fuelling the war. UN experts have expressed “dismay” at the selective application of genocide law.
This is not just a historical judgment waiting to happen. It is a collapse already in motion. Britain’s claim to be a guardian of international law has imploded in the eyes of the legal community. Its double standard is laid bare: intervention against Myanmar, indulgence towards Israel. Lammy and Starmer’s attempt at legal cover has already backfired.
Lammy and Starmer both built their careers as human rights lawyers. Lammy trained and practised at the bar; Starmer served as Director of Public Prosecutions. Both invoke these credentials to buttress their credibility. Yet both have betrayed the principles they claim to embody completely, such is their devotion to Israel, there can be no other way of reading this.
The contrast with Myanmar is sickening. Britain invoked the duty to prevent in that case, affirming that plausibility was enough. It lauded the ICJ for acting early. In Gaza, it has done the opposite. This is not sober inconsistency. It is this Starmer regime caught red-handed.
That hypocrisy cuts deeper because of Starmer and Lammy’s training. These are not lay politicians. They are lawyers who know the law and choose to misapply it. That makes their betrayal all the more damning.
Britain’s stance recalls earlier failures. At Srebrenica in 1995, eight thousand men and boys were massacred while international peacekeepers looked on. States claimed ignorance or incapacity. The ICJ later ruled that Serbia had failed to prevent.
In Gaza, Britain cannot claim ignorance. With its RAF base at Akrotiri and surveillance sharing with the United States and Israel, it knows in real time what is happening. It cannot claim incapacity. As a major arms exporter and permanent Security Council member, it has significant influence. Yet it denies the plausibility of genocide.
The echo of Srebrenica is clear. Then, Europe failed Bosnia. Now, Britain fails Gaza. The cover stories have crumbled before, and they are crumbling again.
If this record is ever tested, culpability would fall on several levels. At the state level, Britain is responsible for failing to prevent genocide once the ICJ found plausibility. At the governmental level, the Starmer administration collectively owns the policy of denial and arms supply. At the individual level, Lammy bears responsibility for formalising the denial, Starmer for leading the government and hosting Herzog, and Cooper for continuing the policy, assuming she does so, seems a safe assumption to make right now.
The ICJ’s precedent shows that state responsibility attaches when knowledge, means and failure coincide. The ICC’s Rome Statute allows for individual criminal liability if substantial contribution to crimes is proven. While prosecutions are rare, God knows we know that when it comes to politicians, the documentary evidence — Lammy’s letter, export records, public statements — provides a ready-made evidentiary base.
At the very least, Lammy’s letter is a confession of knowledge and denial. It could one day be Exhibit A in a case against Britain’s complicity.
Britain’s denial has consequences beyond Gaza. It undermines the Genocide Convention itself. If states can deny plausibility when allies are implicated, the convention becomes meaningless. The ICJ’s authority is weakened. Future perpetrators will learn that with the right friends, they can escape accountability.
Domestically, the cost is moral bankruptcy. A Labour government led by human rights lawyers has chosen expediency over principle. Public faith in the rule of law is eroded. Internationally, Britain’s credibility is shredded. The Global South, already sceptical of Western double standards, sees confirmation that the rules apply to enemies but not to allies.
The reckoning will not come immediately. But it is already under way. Britain’s excuses are collapsing in the courts of law, in the judgment of NGOs, and in the eyes of global opinion. When history delivers its verdict, it will not need to unearth secret evidence. It will cite Lammy’s own letter, Starmer’s handshakes, and Britain’s supply chains.
David Lammy’s letter to Sarah Champion encapsulates the United Kingdom’s betrayal in print. It recites the law, then denies its application. It admits devastation, then denies plausibility. It claims to stand for law, then undermines the ICJ. Britain continues to supply weapons while denying it is arming Israel. It hosts Israeli leaders while famine ravages Gaza.
This is not hypocrisy alone. It is complicity, already exposed. Under the Genocide Convention and under the precedent of Bosnia v. Serbia, Britain knows of the risk, has means to act, and has chosen denial. That is a breach of the duty to prevent.
For Lammy, for Starmer, for Cooper, the record is damning. They are not only misrepresenting the law but enabling the crime. By doing so, they are writing the United Kingdom’s own charge sheet. And that charge sheet is not a prophecy for the future. It is already being written in black and white. Their cover story has collapsed and a reckoning is due.
Cooper’s shift to the Foreign Office from the Home Office might be seen as saving her blushes ahead of that Judicial Review into Palestine Action’s proscription in November, but the scenes this past weekend with 900 protesters arrested for holding placards, including pensioners and disabled were gut-wrenching, not to mention pointless as it happens as despite their proscription, it seems Palestine Action scored another win against Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, their favourite target. Get all the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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