Is Your Nation Complicit in Genocide? Call the Cops!

February 7th, 2024 - by Angie Zelter / Women United Against NTO & Rise Up.net

Reporting  Your Government’s
Complicity in Genocide in Gaza
Angie Zelter / Women United Against NTO & Rise Up.net

LONDON, UK (February 6, 2024) — Dear Friends, I have been organising reports of UK complicity in Genocide in Gaza and wondered if any of you in your different countries have the possibility of doing something similar? .

Report the Crime of Aiding and
Abetting the Gaza to Your Local Police
All citizens are entitled and even urged by the UK authorities to report any crimes to the police that need investigation. Surely one of the worst crimes being enacted currently is the genocidal attacks on Gaza by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). The UK is aiding and abetting this genocide by providing weapons and the use of its overseas military bases to provide intelligence and the transport of military equipment to Israel.

We urge you to either go along in person — perhaps in a group — to your nearest open police station or to phone in your report. Look below under: A – Police Station Information.

You could even inform the press and local TV station so they can interview you before and after your visit to the station.

At the police station or on the phone to a police officer:-

  • You will be asked for your name and contact details.
  • You should explain that you wish to report a crime which is extremely serious and you are very worried and concerned about it. If you wish you could also say that the behaviour of the British Government and military is affecting you and is in effect a ‘breach of the peace’.
  • The crime is specified in detail below but you do not have to go into detail – this is their job as police officers. Quite simply you are claiming that the UK government and military are breaching the UK Genocide Act of 1969 which gave effect to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and you wish the crime to be investigated. You are not a lawyer but a concerned citizen who expects the police to investigate impartially, to deal with the crime and report back to you. See below details of the crime under B – Crime Being Reported.
  • You can give as little or as much evidence of the crime as you wish but you should stress that the police are the investigative experts and this is their job now they have been alerted to the alleged crime. You will find below some suggested resources showing evidence you might want to give under C – Sources of Evidence.
  • You should ask for the name of the officer taking your report and note the date and time of your conversation and anything that is said.
  • You must ask for a crime number and to be sent a response as soon as possible.
  • Be polite at all times – if told this is political and they cannot deal with it you should make it clear that your report is in fact a legal matter dealing with criminality and the role of the police is to prevent crime, which is why you are approaching them.
  • Please do let me ( angie.zelter@gmail.com) know if you take part in this reporting of crime and send me any details including where/when/how it took place, and the crime number.

A – Police Station Information
Put pour local police station info here. In the UK you can report a crime by phone on 0800 555 111. Or directly to the Metropolitan Police who deal with War Crime issues by logging in to https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/war-crimes/af/report-a-war-crime/ and filling out the form online. I am collecting the reference numbers of everyone who lets me know they have done this and I will follow -up with the police if we here nothing in the next week or two.

The reply I received was:
Dear Ms Zelter,
Thank you for your referral. We are in the process of reviewing all the material sent to us, logging and sharing with the appropriate agencies and organisations. Where appropriate we will undertake a scoping exercise to establish whether there is a UK nexus that can be investigated by the Metropolitan Police Service.
The terms of reference for our scoping exercises can be found on the Crown Prosecution Service website: https://www.cps.gov.uk/publication/war-crimescrimes-against-humanity-referral-guidelines
Yours Sincerely,
Chris DS Chris De Asha
War Crimes Investigations – Pod 3 Team 12 SO15 Counter Terrorism Command Address: F.23, CTOC, Lillie Road, London, SW6 1TR

B – Crime Being Reported
The crime is aiding and abetting Israel to commit genocide. The main people engaging in the criminal acts are the PM Sunak and Admiral Sir Tony Radakin as the professional head of the United Kingdom’s Armed Forces and principal military adviser to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Defence.

The Genocide Act 1969 was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that gave effect to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9 December 1948. It is also relevant to consider the International Criminal Court Act 2001 (2014).

The Elements of the Crime of Genocide:

  • Killing members of the group.
  • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
  • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
  • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

The UK is involved in ancillary offences as they are not directly involved in the genocide as far as we know but are aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the commission of the offence of Genocide.

C – Sources of Evidence
There is no doubt that Israel’s current campaign of bombing of civilians and of the deprivation of food, water and other necessities of life to Palestinians amounts to genocide. There is a strong prima facie case that the actions of the UK in openly providing direct military support and the use of their Cypriot military bases to send weapons over to Israel throughout the bombardment of Gaza is complicity in genocide. The point of Article IV is that individuals are responsible, not just states. So not only Netanyahu and Biden but also our UK PM Sunak all bear individual responsibility.

Here are some sources of evidence you might like to use but you can provide whatever you wish.

  • The recent case taken to the ICJ (International Court of Justice) by South Africa contains a huge amount of evidence that the police need to look at. Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) – Public hearings on the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by South Africa. Thursday 11 January 2024 – Friday 12 January 2024. The hearings are videoed and can be found at https://www.icj-cij.org/multimedia/203403
  • On 26thJanuary 2024 the ICJ ruled that there is plausible evidence Israel is committing genocide against Palestinian people in Gaza. The ruling found that the court had jurisdiction and evidence to take the case further. It also authorised interim measures due to the “real and imminent risk of irreparable prejudice” to the rights of Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention. See the full ruling at https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240126-ord-01-00-en.pdf. Database of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – 4th January 2024 • to be found at https://law4palestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Database-of-Israeli-Incitement-to-Genocide-DECISION-MAKERS.pdf
  • Some of the initial statements from the Israeli government committed to perpetrating war crimes were made on 7th October 2023 in a televised address Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he promised ‘vengeance’and ‘revenge’. “We will turn Gaza into a deserted island.”

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Galant

On October 8th, the Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Galant declared:
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed”. “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” Galant said. In another video, he said: “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.” There is plenty of visual evidence that these statements are being enacted, which you can find and download from the internet.

Current Situation as of Mid-January 2024
More than 25,500 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. More than 62,000 have been injured, and thousands more are missing and presumed dead.

Experts say the besieged strip is unrecognisable and its bombing is the most destructive in modern history. Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza for nearly three months has destroyed 70 percent of the homes in the besieged Palestinian enclave, according to the Government Media Office.

Over 65,000 housing units in Gaza have been destroyed, with 1.9 million of the 2.2 million population displaced, around 85% (UN OCHA).

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has warned that 40% of the population of Gaza is at risk of famine. In December 2023, the International Food Security Phase Classification body (ICP), an international body assessing hunger and food insecurity worldwide, assessed that 90% of the Gaza population faced at least “Crisis” (phase 3) levels of acute food insecurity, with over 15%, 378,000 people, facing “Catastrophe” (phase 5 – famine conditions).

They estimated that by early February, if fighting continued, as many as 40% of the population would face such catastrophic food insecurity. Such conditions are “characterized by households experiencing an extreme lack of food, starvation, and exhaustion of coping capacities”.

Angie Zelter’s latest book can be seen at http://tridentploughshares.org/activism-for-life-a-new-book-by-angie-zelter/
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower
“The taproot of violence in our society today is our intention to use nuclear weapons. Once we have agreed to that, all other evil is minor in comparison. Until we squarely face the question of our consent to use nuclear weapons, any hope of large-scale improvement of public morality is doomed to failure.” — McSorley