Solidarity statement on Palestine

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people and all those affected by Israeli, UK, European and US colonial violence in Palestine and the wider region.  

We are here to fight to improve the lives of people who move, challenge racism and discrimination, and promote human rights. Our vision is a society in which people are able to live safely and are treated with equal dignity and respect. 

The echoes of the UK’s colonialism link the struggle of Palestinians to the struggle of people who move, throughout history until the present day. 

Palestinians have endured the consequences of violent settler-colonialism on their land since the early 19th century, as a direct result of the UK’s colonial involvement: mass displacement, massacres, ethnic cleansing, occupation, apartheid, and now, a live-streamed genocide. 

Israel is carrying out the deliberate and systematic destruction of Palestinians. Israel has killed at least 57,680 Palestinians in Gaza (likely a significant underestimate). This is genocide. Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing against Palestinians. Israel is committing mass war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians. 

Israel has inflicted and continues to inflict deliberate starvation of Palestinians and is now using supposed humanitarian aid as a weapon, engineering multiple and repeated slaughters of hundreds of starving Palestinians at so-called ‘aid distribution centres’. 

Israeli forces have systematically attacked and dismantled the healthcare infrastructure in Gaza, destroying hospitals and deliberately and repeatedly targeting and killing medical and healthcare workers, while also blocking medical aid to the region. 

Israeli forces have deliberately targeted and killed hundreds of Palestinian and International journalists, in order to prevent reporting of the horrific reality being broadcast daily from Gaza. 

The scale of destruction, violence and de-humanisation of Palestinians and Gaza is at an almost incomprehensible level. This is a deliberate tactic to make us turn away, to lose sight of each atrocity. The genocide has been compounded by ecocide, alongside the almost complete destruction of housing and infrastructure in Gaza. 

The UK is entirely complicit in what is happening, historically and today. This brutal violence and destruction has not only been carried out with impunity and inaction from Western governments, but with their full backing, including the UK. The UK has historically supported or turned a blind eye to Israeli violence and breaking of international law, and the UK continues to provide diplomatic cover to Israel on the international stage and in international forums.  

The UK government continues to arm Israel, to provide military support including allowing Israeli military planes used in the bombing of Gaza to land in the UK, to host Israeli arms factories in the UK, to provide military intelligence to Israel via UK surveillance planes flying over Gaza, and to train Israeli Occupation Forces soldiers.  

We reject attempts by Western governments and Western media to manufacture consent for this genocide and violence against Palestinians via propaganda and bare-faced lies. We reject the narratives that frame the genocide as self-defence and any resistance as terrorism. We stand with those seeking liberation. 

The forced displacement of Palestinians mirrors the forced displacement experienced by many of those who JCWI has worked with and supported over the years and currently. From South Asia to East Africa, from the Caribbean to the Middle East, the British empire enslaved, extracted, divided, displaced and destroyed communities, creating patterns of migration that continue today.  

The Mediterranean is a deadly route of migration, with thousands of people, including Palestinians dying there in recent years, their movements heavily restricted and violently suppressed. At the same time arms move freely across the region, alongside white Europeans and UK expats, who vastly outnumber migrants in the UK. 

Palestinians have no route out of Gaza, and no way to claim asylum here. This is not an accident, but a deliberate choice that reflects the historic racist dehumanisation of Black and Brown people in UK immigration policy. It is this same racist dehumanisation that enables UK media and government to downplay or deny the horror facing Palestinians, while punishing and criminalising those who dare to challenge and speak out about it. 

The dehumanisation of Palestinians, and of Black and Brown bodies generally, does not end at the border of occupied Palestine. It is another element of the UK’s colonial legacy, and this latest surge in violence will have violent echoes for Black and Brown people and communities across the UK and Europe, such as in the racist riots in the UK in the summer of 2024. The more this and violence against Palestinians is justified, normalised or ignored, the more violence against Black and Brown people and communities elsewhere will be justified, normalised or ignored. 

We condemn the targeting, criminalisation (including under terrorism laws) and punishment of people who have stood up for Palestinians and challenged these horrors via the courts, protest and direct action. In addition, lawyers and campaigners for Palestine and Palestinian rights are being subjected to the same racist and ideological attacks by the state and media as lawyers and campaigners for migrants and migrants’ rights have also been subjected to. 

The fight for migrant justice and liberation is intertwined with the fight for Palestinian justice and liberation. Their root causes are the same: colonialism, imperialism and racism. Our resistance to them must also be united. 

We call on the UK government to: 

• Stop all arms sales to Israel and stop Israeli arms being developed and manufactured in the UK, impose a two-way arms embargo, and prevent any arms shipments to Israel docking in the UK; 

• End all military and intelligence cooperation with Israel, including surveillance flights over Gaza, allowing Israeli military planes to land in the UK and training of Israeli Occupation Forces; 

• Withdraw diplomatic support for Israel, demand an end to the genocide and the illegal Occupation of Palestine, and support Palestinian self-determination; 

• Recognise the right to claim asylum for those fleeing violence, risk of persecution, climate crisis, and those in need, including Palestinians; 

• Cease the targeting and criminalisation, and punishment of protest, activists and lawyers demanding and seeking an end to the genocide. 

What we are doing: 

JCWI has made public statements condemning Israel’s genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes, in support of people taking action for Palestinians, and has a long history of representing Palestinians in the UK.  

We condemn the failings of the Refugee Convention in seeking to exclude Palestinians from asylum, the only group to be excluded from protection based solely on their nationality, and we challenge it in our legal work.  

Through our casework, we continue to argue that Palestinians must have equal access to claiming asylum, they must not be excluded due to protecting settler colonialism, or because they have been forcibly displaced to neighbouring countries since 1947.  

However, we acknowledge that there is more that we can do as an organisation. We are committed to following Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions guidelines, and we are currently reviewing our existing relationships.  

What can you do: 

• Ensure compliance with Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) guidelines in relation to products and services, at home, in your workplace, and elsewhere. 

• Support BDS campaigns in the UK such as Don’t Buy Apartheid and international BDS campaigns. 

• Support local BDS campaigns such as Shake the CIV (London) or another local campaign wherever you live. 

• Join a local Palestine solidarity group such as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, another pro-Palestine support, protest or direct action group. 

• Contact your MP and ask them to call on the government to end arms sales to Israel, end military and diplomatic support and cooperation, enable Palestinians to claim asylum in Britain, and end the criminalisation and punishment of activists and lawyers demanding an end to the genocide.