Conservative UK MP Crispin Blunt fears his colleagues are unaware of the legal risk they take by voicing support for Israel.
By demanding that 1.1 million people in the north of Gaza leave their homes, and by relentlessly bombing civilian homes, schools and hospitals, Israel is inarguably committing gross war crimes.
“That it happens after an attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, which was indisputably also a war crime, is irrelevant. Israel is a state and is obliged to follow the international law of war under all circumstances”, says British MP Crispin Blunt in an October 21 CNN interview.
Complicity makes you equally guilty
Blunt, who represents the same conservative party as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, emphasises as well that it is not only the Israeli leaders who must expect to be prosecuted for war crimes in the wake of the criminal war that is taking place against the people of Gaza. Political leaders in the United States, Great Britain and other Western countries who give unreserved support to Israel, despite the crimes being committed, become not only politically and morally, but also legally complicit. Blunt clarified this in an interview with Sky News on October 14.
“If you know that a party intends to commit a war crime – and the forced displacement of an entire population is a clear violation of one of the basic principles that govern international law and binds all states in this area, then you make yourself an accomplice. And as international law has developed in this area, being an accessory means that you are considered as guilty as the party who commits the crime,” Blunt explained.
Warns Norwegian politicians
Chairwoman of FOR, Marielle Leraand, has previously stated the same as Blunt. She emphasises that Blunt’s warning to his British colleagues can also be directed to Norwegian politicians who give verbal support to Israel while the state commits war crimes.
“There will be CONSEQUENCES after this, and if Peace and Justice (FOR) enters the Storting in autumn 2025, we will do everything we can to indict these war criminals and convict them of the crimes they are now committing, Leraand promises.