The Rt Hon. Sir Keir Starmer MP
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London SW1A 2AA

20 June 2025
Dear Prime Minister,

Ongoing genocide in Gaza

I write in relation to the continuing failure of His Majesty’s Government to adequately respond to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

We are nearly nineteen months into the Israeli campaign of extermination against the Palestinians in Gaza. To date 60,000 people have been massacred, nearly one third of them children. Hardly a day passes without a new level of savagery being unleashed by the fanatical regime in Tel Aviv.

Yet despite the stomach churning horrors flashing daily across our screens, your government still cannot find the requisite will, let alone actions, to try and stop them.

It would be bad enough if your response was just lily-livered and inadequate. However, it is much worse. Not only have you failed to properly condemn the genocide but you have deployed British military assets, namely our intelligence gathering services, to assist Israel in prosecuting it. Along with your abject knee-flexing to the Israeli government, it has made you a willing accomplice in crimes against humanity.

The consequences of this policy of appeasement and assistance are not confined to Gaza. It has emboldened Israel to attack its neighbours in the knowledge that the collective West will always have its back. Lebanon and Syria are a case in point where despite a ceasefire and change of government, illegal Israeli military activity continues unchecked.

Intoxicated by the hubris of its military might, Israel has now turned its attention to a new target, Iran. Under the false pretext of Tehran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme, Israel has once again cocked a snook to international law and human rights by attacking Iran. But instead of condemning the aggression and sanctioning the perpetrator, the West is once again lining up to punish the victim.

Credible reports suggest that Washington has decided to join Israel’s attack with a bombing campaign starting this weekend. This is despite an assessment from the US National Director of Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. In our own country, the Attorney General, Lord Hermer, has reportedly warned you that joining the war on Iran may be illegal.

We urge you to take his advice. In addition to placing Britain outside international law, a broader attack on Iran could be a spark to the tinderbox that is the Middle East right now. A major regional conflagration would make Afghanistan and Iraq look like cakewalks. We should heed the lesson of those misadventures that illegitimate and unwanted interventions rarely turn out well for the UK or the countries we attack.

Your record in office has already been stained by the blood of children that our armed forces have contributed to slaughtering in Gaza. You should be in no doubt that if you now commit British forces to the Israeli war against Iran, history will remember you as it did your Labour predecessor Tony Blair: a butcher and a war criminal.

Yours faithfully,

Massoud Shadjareh
Chair, Islamic Human Rights Commission