SACC Statement on the Gaza Genocide and Related Conflicts
31 October 2024 - SACC
As Israel’s genocide in Gaza enters its second year, SACC renews its call for governments around the world to demand an end to the genocide and to cease all actions that have the effect of supporting or enabling the genocide or protecting Israel and Israeli leaders from the consequences of their actions. As a UK-based organisation we direct our call especially to the British Government.
The British Government must stop acting as Israel’s partner in the Gaza genocide.
We are particularly concerned about the horror now unfolding in North Gaza. We note that UN Acting Under-Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs Joyce Msuya states that "the entire population of North Gaza is at risk of dying" and we support her demand that "what Israeli forces are doing in beseiged North Gaza cannot be allowed to continue."
The Knesset vote on 28 October to ban UNRWA will deepen the suffering of Palestinians and is futher evidence of Israel's genocidal intent towards Palestinians in all the occupied territories and of Israel's contempt for international law. As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated, national legislation cannot alter Israel's international obligations.
UN Special Rapporteur Fransesca Albanese states in her latest report on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 that "genocidal conduct in Gaza set an ominous precedent for the West Bank" and that "the Gaza genocide is a tragedy foretold and one that risks expanding to other Palestinians under Israeli rule." She says "member states must intervene now to prevent new atrocties that will further scar human history."
SACC is concerned not only by the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, but also by the escalation of conflicts elewhere that are related to Israel's genocide in Gaza. All the conflicts that Israel has been involved in since 7 October 2023 have been direct and immediate consequences of its genocidal actions in Gaza and have their roots in Israel’s occupation of territories internationally recognised as Palestinian and in a multitude of other colonial and oppressive policies towards the Palestinian people. This point is not changed by the tit-for-tat nature of the actions of all parties to these conflicts.
Israel’s confrontation with Iran and its conflicts with Hezbollah in Lebanon and with Ansar Allah in Yemen could all be readily resolved if Israel halted its genocide in Gaza. This will not necessarily remain the case if the conflicts continue to escalate.
Israel’s confrontation with Iran is of particular concern because it engages with long-standing US ambitions to undermine Iran and bring about the re-installation of the kind of client regime that ruled Iran prior to the 1979 revolution.
SACC joined with the Stop the War Coalition in opposing the various episodes of US sabre-rattling towards Iran that followed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. We continue today to stand against US aggression against Iran and other countries and peoples of the Middle East.
We view the endless genocide in Gaza, the genocidal trend of Israel’s actions in Lebanon and the continuing disregard for core principles of international law by Israel, the US, the UK and their allies with deep alarm. We fear that these circumstances may create the conditions for the forced displacement of the Palestinian people and the outright annexation of Gaza and the West Bank by Israel.
SACC recognises the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people and respects the right, recognised in international law, of the Palestinian people to resist occupation and colonisation, including their right to resist by armed force and to seek and obtain support for that resistance.
We view with dismay the prospect that the Palestine question may in the end be resolved by large-scale warfare involving multiple state and non-state forces. Whatever the outcome of such a war, it will undoubtedly create enormous suffering.
We hope instead for a radical and liberating political transformation throughout Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories that lays the foundations for a just and peaceful future for all the people living in the territory, respects the right of return of Palestinian refugees, and removes from any material role in political affairs the Zionist ideology that has drawn many Israelis into support for apartheid and genocide. Such a transformation might become possible if Britain and the US ended their support for Israel’s apparatus of repression.
In order to end the unimaginable suffering of the people of Gaza and halt the spread of war and the breakdown of international law and in line with repeated calls from experts for more action by UN member states, SACC urges the British Government to immediately:
- Demand a halt to all Israeli military operations in Gaza, an end to Israeli obstruction of humanitarian aid and an end to Israeli restrictions on media access to Gaza. The history of the last year demonstrates that no other course of action is capable of satisfying the indication of provisional measures in the binding order issued by the International Court of Justice on 26 January 2024 and the indication of additional provisional measures in the binding order issued on 28 March 2024.
- Demand a halt to all Israeli military operations in Lebanon. Israel’s actions in Lebanon have caused large-scale loss of civilian life and serious damage to civilian infrastructure, including medical facilities. Only a cessation of all Israeli military operations in Lebanon will ensure that no further war crimes are committed by Israel.
- End all military support for Israel, including intelligence sharing, assistance in defence against air attacks and assistance in promoting Israeli goals within the Palestinian Authority.
- Impose a total embargo on the supply of military equipment to Israel.
- Remove the political and armed wings of Hamas and Hezbollah from the list of organisations proscribed under the UK’s Terrorism Act 2000. The ban on these organisations is an obstacle to peace. It sits uncomfortably with the recognised right of the Palestinian people to resist occupation and colonisation by armed force, it facilitates Israel’s use of the supposed criminality of Hamas and Hezbollah as a pretext for genocide, it inhibits diplomatic efforts for peace and it represses political discussion in the UK.
These limited demands are the minimum needed for any meaningful attempt to halt the genocide and prevent the spread of conflict. They require a complete reversal of the policies of the current and previous British governments and will not be granted without a determined effort. We therefore call on MPs of all parties to do everything possible to bring these demands forward in Parliament and we call on campaigning organisations, trade unions and community groups to energetically press MPs to this effect.
Besides these limited demands, SACC urges the British Government to insist, in line with the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice on 19 July 2024, that Israel must “bring an end to its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible” and the demand set out in the UN General Assembly Resolution of 13 September 2024 for Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territory no later than 12 months from the adoption of the resolution.
SACC continues to support the broad call for a ceasefire by the worldwide Palestine solidarity movement alongside our specific demands for the immediate cessation of Israeli military operations.
We re-affirm our support for the call by the BDS movement for “international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.”
We also re-affirm our call for the British Government to repeal the UK’s anti-terrorism laws in their entirety. These laws are designed to facilitate the British state’s support for repressive regimes around the world and to suppress domestic opposition to Britain’s foreign policy.
We applaud those who take non-violent direct action against facilities that supply Israel with military equipment and we encourage support for anyone facing charges or suffering penalties as a result of actions or speech in support of Palestinian liberation, with the usual caveat that we do not support fascists or racists.
SACC is an affiliate of the Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee and the Edinburgh Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee and endorses the aims and activities of these organisations.
Photo: Effigies of children killed in Gaza and during the Hamas-led incursion of 7 October 2023 laid down during a protest in New York, 29 December 2023. © lev radin / Alamy Stock Photo