Press Releases

For more than a year, western colonial states have sustained their unconditional support for the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime as it executes a genocide in the Gaza Strip. These states, which have long facilitated Israel’s system of domination and the ongoing Nakba, continue to drape their complicity with a thin veneer of “grave concern”. However, throughout the genocide in Gaza and the aggression on Lebanon, colonial states’ complicity has never been clearer. It manifests in billions of dollars in military aid, political cover for Israeli crimes, the spread of Israeli propaganda and falsehoods, and the repression of Palestine solidarity.
The military support of colonial states has been fundamental to the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime, enabling its relentless bombardment and mass killing across the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon. It is estimated that since 7 October 2023, the US has provided more than 17.9 billion dollars worth of military aid, including the recent deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery—Lockheed Martin’s missile interceptor system—along with US soldiers to operate it. Germany, one of its biggest arms suppliers for decades, has in the last few weeks approved 33.7 million dollars worth of military aid to the Israeli regime. Without these and other states’ military support, the Israeli colonial-aparthied regime would not have been able to carry out, let alone sustain over a year of genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Since the start of the genocide, western colonial states have also diligentally provided Israel with political cover and impunity, espousing its “right to self-defense” and shielding it from accountability. German officials, including Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Chancellor Olaf Scholz, have repeatedly described ensuring Israel’s security as part of Germany’s raison d’état. On 13 October 2024, Baerbock stood before parliament and defended Israel’s targeting of civilians in Gaza: “I made it clear at the United Nations that civilian sites could lose their protected status if terrorists abuse this status. That’s what Germany stands for – and that’s what we mean when we refer to Israel’s security.”
Germany’s political complicity extends to submitting a declaration of intervention supporting the Israeli regime in the genocide case brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), suspending UNRWA funding amid widespread starvation and a siege on Gaza, and consistently opposing or abstaining from UN resolutions (e.g. a General Assembly resolution calling for ceasefire and a Human Rights Council resolution for an arms embargo). Similarly, the UK has abstained from three UN Security Council resolutions aimed at ending the genocide, while the US has actively thwarted these efforts, vetoing all such resolutions.
The lack of political will to hold the Israel regime accountable further manifests in states refusing to take any steps to enforce Israeli compliance with the provisional measures indicated by the ICJ, and standing idly by as the International Criminal Court defers the issuance of arrest warrants against the perpetrators of the genocide for four months. The actions and non-actions of these states not only point to a profound moral and political bankruptcy, but also to their complete disregard for international accountability mechanisms.
Furthermore, colonial states have failed to provide protection for UN forces and agencies. Even though the Israeli regime has killed 226 UNRWA staff, the highest number in history, and damaged and destroyed ⅔ of UNRWA’s facilities in the Gaza Strip, states have refused to act. States have not taken any meaningful actions to protect and safeguard the only UN Agency mandated to provide aid and services to Palestinian refugees as the Knesset greenlights two illegal bills that will effectively evict UNRWA from the West Bank and Gaza. When Israeli forces attacked UNIFIL bases in Lebanon, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK offered nothing but hollow condemnations, notably failing to take any decisive actions to curb the Israeli aggression against Lebanon or stop their complicity.
At home, colonial states have been suppressing and criminalizing Palestine solidarity movements. In the US, this includes police violence against students protesting genocide and setting up encampments, and a rise in government surveillance against Palestinaians or those in solidarity. Germany has significantly cracked down on all forms of Palestine solidarity, banning protests and demonstrations in support of Palestine, fining people for using slogans like “from the river to the sea”, threatening protesters with deportation, and denying the entry of several prominent activists and speakers critical of the Israeli regime.
As the Israeli genocide escalates, particularly in northern Gaza, in parallel to its aggression on Lebanon, states are obligated under international law to take concrete measures in the form of arms embargoes and sanctions. Any state that continues to provide economic, political, and military support is not only complicit, but a participant in those Israeli crimes.