Faced with the horror of the Gaza genocide, we must not forget that Israel’s actions depend on the support of global economic and political structures that continue — and update — historic forms of oppression like the British Empire.

Illustration by Carson McNamara

There was a time when approximately one-third of the globe was shaded pink, signifying lands that were part of the British Empire. Of course, some people claim that the Empire was a civilising force — a vehicle for spreading democracy and embodying a kind of moral crusade. However, one should always be drawn back to the heinous acts committed in the name of the Empire. Ultimately, defending imperialism is an attempt to justify the exploitation of indigenous people, their lands, and their resources.

Britain continues to find comfort in not acknowledging what was done in the days of our rampant and ruthless imperial expansion. While those ‘glory days’ are a distant memory, British involvement in a current colonial project is still very much ongoing.

It is incontestable that Britain owes a growing historical debt to the Palestinian people. A former British prime minister, Arthur James Balfour (then foreign secretary), issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which supported the establishment of a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine. At the time, Palestine was an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. Following the end of the First World War and the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in it, Britain was granted a mandate (1920-1948) for Palestine by the League of Nations, to prepare the land for independence while implementing the planned Balfour Declaration.

The declaration was contained in a letter from Balfour to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild, a prominent leader of the British Jewish community. It stated:

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”.

With the Balfour Declaration incorporated into the mandate, Britain had successfully paved the way for the creation of Israel and the start of Judaism being used as the basis of a national identity, a development that ran in tandem with the promotion of British imperial interests in the Middle East.

And after nearly three decades of British occupation, the collective trauma of the Nakba in 1948 saw around 700,000 Palestinians driven into exile, as over 500 villages were erased from the map. The seizure of land, the apartheid-style living conditions, the denial of human rights, the stripping of civil liberties, and the relentless degradation which is part of daily life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories today are all ultimately direct consequences of the events of the late 1940s.

Honour Among Thieves

Britain’s historic role, then, was as the architect of Israel. Over time, it has shifted to a position of partnership, but one still defined by imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism. Today, cooperation between the British and Israeli governments goes beyond the ‘normal’ relations most nations enjoy. In September, Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, to 10 Downing Street. Herzog is a man who said that ‘an entire nation’ was responsible for the 7 October 2023 attacks perpetrated by Hamas, and that the collective punishment of Palestinians was justified. He met with Starmer to protest British positions, including the (at the time putative) recognition of a Palestinian state, and Britain’s support for humanitarian aid efforts in the region. The meeting resulted in the UK government stressing that Israel is a longstanding ally and declaring the importance of its ongoing partnership with Israel.

In fact, that partnership extends far beyond the diplomatic sphere. By continuing to sell arms to Israel, Britain is complicit in allowing weapons which could be used to commit violations of international law. When it comes to arms sales, Amnesty International is correct: there should be no loopholes to legal proscriptions, and no limitations. As well as on arms sales, the British government has questions to answer regarding surveillance flights from RAF Akrotiri, our base in Cyprus — and the sharing with Israeli forces of the intelligence gained from these missions. The British people have not been told what information has been handed over. The military support we continue to give Israel as they commit a genocide makes a mockery of our humanitarian obligations.

However, it is not just through weapons and agreements that Britain normalises and perpetuates the occupation and colonisation of Palestine and its people. When visiting Ramallah and the surrounding areas last November, I was struck by the extent to which the West Bank now amounts to a display of obedience. The compliance of the Palestinian people there has occurred by way of an economic paralysis inflicted by Israel. The colonisers have infiltrated every aspect of daily life, and the colonised have accepted it, partly because of the Palestinian National Authority’s weakness. The Fatah-controlled government body has become a shadow of Israeli rule, not its opposite — in effect, an ossified bureaucracy.

One Palestinian I spoke to on my visit described his life as a ‘dwelling in a beaten homeland’, another a case of ‘being exiled in my own land, looking to my oppressor for help’. By trading with Israel, even as it floods the Palestinian economy with Israeli and Western products at the expense of homegrown Palestinian produce, Britain has contributed to Palestinian reliance on Israel for goods. This concerted effort to eliminate Palestinian self-reliance through ingratiating the Israeli economy into Palestine and the global trade arena — and the controlling of people and communities which comes along with it — is essential to the colonisers’ plan. The upshot is a relentless degradation of living conditions so that everything can be rebuilt in the shape the colonisers desire.

The de-development of the Palestinian economy is the result of the economic machinery of settler colonialism. Palestinians are used as a cheap labour source to generate wealth for the coloniser. Palestinian workers are treated as disposable commodities — a familiar story of capitalism giving rise to the exploitation of the land and the exploitation of the worker. The Israeli occupation has led to reduced terms and conditions for Palestinian workers compared to Israeli counterparts — on average, wages are between 60 and 70 percent lower for a Palestinian compared to an Israeli in the same job. Palestinian workers are also dependent on the Israel Defence Force for access to and from work, and trade union activity is vastly reduced. In other words, the occupation dictates working conditions — and subsequently the economy — that Palestinians find themselves in.

Economics of Genocide

The current economic situation in Palestine is a result of Britain and the international community granting Israel legitimacy to control land and resources. In the days of the British Mandate, to reduce Britain’s dependence on Germany for minerals like potash (used in fertiliser production) and bromine (an additive in fuel), the British government enabled Zionist companies such as Palestine Potash Ltd to benefit from access to the Dead Sea for mineral extraction. Indigenous Palestinian businesses rightly viewed the change in access as a political effort to alter the balance of economic power by way of establishing dominance for Jewish control of natural resources, including Dead Sea minerals (Palestine’s most lucrative natural asset at the time).

The historical connections between imperial interests, capitalism, and the colonisation of Palestine are obvious. Half a century ago, agriculture accounted for 52 percent of Palestine’s GDP. Today, it is 7 percent. For decades, Israel has annexed Palestinian farmland, killed crops, and destroyed livestock. Farmers are routinely stopped at roadblocks and have their vehicles impounded. Because their produce is delayed from reaching markets, Palestinian farmers are unable to trade. Such tactics have led to mass unemployment. Farming has become unsustainable, as Palestinian farms cannot compete with settler farms that have access to Israeli government subsidies and grants.

These circumstances have led to collective poverty, one achieved not by chance but by design. Israel targets the production power of Palestinian industry and certain communities, as part of a systematic effort to destroy economic structures and to displace and exterminate Palestinians. Since 7 October 2023, approximately 150,000 Palestinian workers have been prevented from going to work, pushing these workers and their families into poverty. Palestinians live within borders within borders. This is, if you like, death by economic genocide.

Because Palestinian farmers have limited access to trade, they rely heavily on Israel for providing food. With the IDF closing borders and erecting numerous checkpoints to police travel, many Palestinians are facing a life of grinding penury. With the decimation of Gaza and the apartheid-style living conditions in the West Bank, the issue of food insecurity because of a lack of food sovereignty has become deadly.

A genocidal ideology driving the seizure of land and resources, coupled with blame for the indigenous people, is the classic strategy of a colonial power. Blaming the hungry for their hunger is exactly what the British did to the Irish during the Great Famine. Israel has killed tens of thousands of people with bombs and bullets, but in this period of apparent ceasefire, perhaps the majority of Palestinians are being killed with hunger. Aid destined for the Palestinians is in the gift of the Israeli government, and just as colonisation wears the clothes of humanitarianism, aid and the subsequent rebuilding of occupied Palestine are being used as methods of control.

The building of Israeli society is a perfect example of imperialism and colonialism at work, with Israel ultimately embodying the growth of capitalist hegemony in the Middle East. In keeping with such historic precedents, the double standards of Britain advocating for humanitarian aid to reach Gaza, while still supporting the Israeli economy which rules Palestinian lives, cannot be overstated. Palestinians do need aid. But what they also really must have is control of their resources to become self-sufficient, so that they do not need to rely on humanitarians and foreign capital. Without this, Palestine will never be free from occupation, colonisation, and imperial interests.

British Empire Redux

The truth is that there is nothing ethical about British foreign policy if we continue to endorse Netanyahu’s regime either diplomatically, militarily, or through business and trade. Nor is there anything ethical, more broadly, about the British government making cuts to international development aid commitments, which help some of the most disadvantaged, oppressed, and persecuted people in the world. A Labour government must do better than this, because cutting overseas aid is a moral failing.

Foreign aid should not be considered as an ‘expense’ to be cut. It is an investment in global stability, security, and a commitment to making the world a better place. The consequences of cutting overseas support are devastating. In some countries, UK aid has halved child mortality rates and provided food and shelter to those in conflict zones. It continues to combat preventable diseases, put children in schools, and save millions of lives.

Like all cuts, whether domestic or foreign, it will be the poorest and most vulnerable who will be most impacted. The British government claims that such cuts are necessary to fund an increase in defence spending. Framing things in this way is wrong because cutting international development aid does not strengthen our security: it weakens it, and ultimately, ironically, encourages more global migration. A positive aid strategy creates safer and more prosperous societies, reduces instability, and tackles the root causes of conflict. It prevents climate-driven displacement, strengthens healthcare systems, and builds economic resilience. It stops crises from becoming security threats.

Gaza has highlighted the need for global decolonisation. Israel was created by imperial forces and shaped by colonial factors such as apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and persecution. Decades later, what is happening in Gaza shows the Western capitalist philosophies of imperialism and colonialism at work once again. Starmer and the British government have recognised the State of Palestine, but they now need to match that by scrutinising the State of Israel. There is no point in recognising Palestine if those who repress it and oppress it are allowed carte blanche to behave as they please.

Ultimately, the only way to change life for Palestinians is to change life here, in Britain. It is incumbent on MPs to enable that change domestically so that it can also be put into effect in Palestine. Over a century after the Balfour Declaration, Britain has still not substantially deviated from it. Britain allows Israel to act with impunity and refuses to meaningfully sanction its government. Britain continues to sell arms to Israel, and is invested in the Israeli economy to the detriment of Palestinians.

By upholding the status quo, the current British government and other nations with imperial interests in the subjugation of the Palestinian people are ultimately complicit in the sins of the Israeli government. What is needed, in response, is not just the liberation of the Palestinian land, but the liberation of its people, and an end to the atrocities committed against them.