Press Releases
BADIL Resource Center for Residency and Refugee Rights has issued its latest publication, entitled “Colonial States’ Complicity in Gaza: Arming and Shielding Genocide.” For over 20 months, rather than abiding by their obligations under international law—including to stop, prevent, and refrain from being complicit in genocide—states have magnified their military and political support to the Israeli regime. This working paper breaks down this support, establishing states’ complicity in the commission of ongoing crimes and violations committed by the Israeli regime specifically in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023.
The support of Western, colonial states has been central to the Israeli regime’s ability to commit crimes and perpetuate the ongoing Nakba for over 77 years. States’ support and endorsement has effectively enabled the sustainment of the Israeli regime, its pillars of colonization, apartheid, and forced displacement and transfer, and the systematic denial of the rights of the Palestinian people, including their inalienable rights to self-determination and return. Their support has crafted a climate of impunity for the Israeli regime that has led up to and made the latest commission of crimes, especially genocide, in Gaza possible.
Foremost, the paper analyzes the legal framework for the crime of complicity under international law. It draws a working definition for complicity by studying states responsibility and liability under public international law, international humanitarian law, and relevant rulings of the International Court of Justice. The paper points to the fundamental distinction between complicity and the failure to prevent/act: while complicity results from commission, the latter results from omission. Thus, the working definition established is: state complicity is a form of secondary liability where a state, through positive acts (e.g., aiding, assisting, encouraging, etc.), contributes to another state’s crimes and violations of international law.
Based on this definition, the paper explores states’ complicity, particularly that of the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany, in the commission of Israeli crimes and violations in the Gaza Strip across two main forms: military and political. Complicity is proven by establishing a causal link between the crimes committed by the Israeli regime and the actions of secondary states, which fall into three main categories: the provision of military aid; the incapacitation and replacement of UNRWA and the United Nations-led humanitarian system; and, paralyzing of accountability mechanisms and obstructing the prevention of Israeli crimes.
This paper is a non-exhaustive examination of state complicity in Gaza, focusing on states’ support for the following Israeli crimes: genocide, wanton destruction, willful killing, obstruction and weaponization of aid, starvation, and forced displacement and transfer.