On 20 May 2025, the governments of the United Kingdom, France, and Canada finally issued a statement on the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. The press release, published on GOV.UK, attempts to place a sliver of distance between the signatories and what can only be described—by the standards of Christian morality and international convention—as a genocidal campaign by the State of Israel.

It is, in essence, a performance. Its purpose is not justice, nor even policy. It is, rather, the studied ambiguity of men who know they are watching crimes against humanity unfold but dare not say so plainly. They express “deep concern” over Israel’s expansion of military operations, they mention “international humanitarian law,” and they say that “too many civilians have been killed.” But they stop short of saying the word. They do not say “genocide.” They do not say, “we will stop arming the perpetrators.” They offer no deadline, no threat, no action—just a whimper of conscience as the slaughter continues.

The British Government’s message is most notable for what it avoids. It avoids admitting that Israel’s siege of Gaza—a place now largely reduced to rubble—is a deliberate campaign of starvation and extermination. It avoids acknowledging that the blockade on food, water, and medical supplies constitutes a war crime. It avoids, with legalistic precision, any mention of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for members of the Israeli government. Above all, it avoids accountability for the UK’s own material complicity. The British Government has allowed weapons to be sold to the Israelis. It has provided diplomatic cover. It has repeated slogans about “self-defence” while people in hospitals, schools and refugee camps were burned alive.

And now it offers a statement. But it is not withdrawing support. It is not demanding a ceasefire. It is not threatening sanctions or suspending military aid. It is not even doing the bare minimum of calling on the United States to stop shipping arms across the Atlantic. The statement, in effect, does nothing beyond trying to preserve the moral image of three Western governments as the bodies continue to pile up.

What are the facts the Government is are evading? Since October 2023, Israel has pursued a military campaign of such intensity and indiscriminate cruelty that it cannot be reconciled with any standard of ethical warfare. The death toll in Gaza is now in the hundreds of thousands. The infrastructure of daily life has been smashed. The United Nations, the World Health Organisation, and every major humanitarian agency has condemned Israel’s actions in forthright terms.

Among the actions documented:

• The systematic starvation of a civilian population, with children dying of hunger before the eyes of foreign aid workers;
• The deliberate blockading of medicine, water, and electricity to a city already under siege;
• Bombings on a scale unprecedented since Vietnam, with Israeli forces dropping 18 times more tonnage than was used during the entire American campaign;
• Paramedics, journalists, and aid workers marked clearly as such, gunned down or blown apart;
• Chemical agents dropped on camps of the displaced;
• Mass rape, starvation, and torture of prisoners;
• Tents flattened by tanks, children executed by snipers, patients dragged from hospitals and dumped in mass graves;
• Civilians incinerated by white phosphorus and incendiary bombs, often in zones designated as “safe” only days before;
• Videos uploaded to Israeli social media glorifying these atrocities, often accompanied by ecstatically bloodthirsty slogans and taunts;
• Settler militias rampaging through the West Bank with military escort, murdering civilians, burning homes, and expelling entire villages.

No part of this is in doubt. The evidence is overwhelming. The imagery is beyond denial. The only question is how long we in the West will pretend not to see it.

I am a Catholic, and as such I cannot discuss war without reference to Just War theory. This body of thought—developed by St Augustine, refined by Aquinas, and echoed by Grotius and Pufendorf—provides a framework by which Christians, and all rational men, can assess the morality of armed conflict.

Let us apply the key principles:

1. Last Resort – Was war undertaken only after all peaceful options were exhausted? No. The siege of Gaza is not a last resort but a long-planned campaign of removal, eagerly accelerated after 7 October.
2. Legitimate Authority – Is the authority waging war recognised and restrained by the rule of law? No. The Israeli state has ignored UN resolutions, violated international treaties, and refused jurisdiction to the ICC.
3. Just Cause – Is there a genuine threat warranting armed response? Even granting the disputed claims about 7 October, the current actions are not self-defence but revenge.
4. Probability of Success – Is the war likely to produce peace or justice? No. It will only radicalise further generations.
5. Right Intention – Are actions motivated by justice, not conquest or hatred? No. Israel’s goal is clear: the permanent removal of Palestinians from Gaza.
6. Proportionality – Are the means used in proportion to the end sought? Plainly not. Mass-murder of civilians cannot be justified by the goal of defeating a militant group.
7. Limited Civilian Harm – Are civilians spared as much as possible? This is perhaps the most grotesque of all. Civilians are the primary targets.

Every one of these principles has been violated, violated repeatedly, systematically, gloatingly.

It follows, then, that Israel’s war is not only unjust but wicked. It is a sin in the theological sense—a rejection of divine order, of charity, of justice. And while the Israelis reject the entirety of the Christian message, and some even heap foul abuse on Christ, the conclusions of Just War theory can be known by natural reason alone, and so are as binding on the Israelis as on everyone else. Indeed, natural reason alone is sufficient to see their crimes for what they are: abominations.

When these facts are brought up, defenders of Israel reach for their tired script. “But what about the hostages?” they ask. “Do you support the right of Israel to exist?” “Don’t you accept its right to defend itself?”

Let us answer each in turn.

Yes, hostages were taken on 7 October 2023. But that fact, even if we accept the dubious Israeli narrative in full, does not justify mass-murder. Hostage-taking is a war crime. But it is not genocide. What Israel has done since that date is genocide—measured not in dozens or hundreds, but in tens of thousands of corpses.

Does Israel have a right to exist? No state has a right to exist at the expense of another people’s survival. If the only way Israel can persist is by murdering women and children, then it has no such right.

And does it have a right to self-defence? Of course—but not by means of mass-murder; not by collective punishment; not by bulldozing towns and bombing hospitals.

The defenders of this war are not making arguments. They are throwing up dust, in the hope that moral confusion will paralyse action. But the facts are not confused. The facts are clear. Israel is committing genocide. And the British Government is helping this.

Britain has sold arms to Israel. British-made components are used in the bombs that have levelled entire cities. British intelligence agencies share information. The British media amplify Israeli talking points while casting suspicion on any Palestinian claim. The British ruling and governing classes are not bystanders. They are accomplices. They are making all of us accomplices.

Even now, after this timid press release, The British Government has not withdrawn support. It continues to allow Israeli warplanes to refuel on British bases. It continues to arrest pro-Palestinian protestors. It continues to shield Israel in international forums.

The reason for this total support is not a matter I presently wish to discuss. The facts on the record are enough for the moment. The British Government has retreated into euphemism. It speaks of “concern.” It speaks of “proportionality.” It waits for the final bulldozers to finish their work so that it can return to business as usual.

Israel will almost certainly succeed in its immediate goal. Gaza will be depopulated. Settlements will rise in its place. Palestinian survivors will be scattered across refugee camps or buried under rubble. But the moral cost to the West will be severe. We have thrown away every principle we claimed to uphold—liberalism, human rights, international law. We have been silent in the face of atrocity.

There will come a time—perhaps soon—when the British Government can no longer pretend. That will be when the images are too many, the corpses too numerous, the silence too shameful. When that day comes, we shall be told that mistakes were made, that lessons have been learned, that this must never happen again. But by then it will be too late.

The Christian Faith teaches that we must bear witness, that we must speak truth even when it is unwelcome, that we must side with the innocent even if the powerful call them terrorists. The blood of Gaza cries out to heaven. Let it not be said that we saw, and said nothing.

Ivory from c.400 AD, British Museum (SIG photographs)