The Maltese government is a bystander to genocide as it remains completely passive and totally indifferent to the genocide of the Gazans by the state of Israel. The Maltese government is perfectly aware and fully knowledgeable of what is taking place in Gaza but takes no stand on the issue.

It continues to postpone unreasonably - day in, day out - its recognition of the state of Palestine until there is no Palestinian left in Gaza by which time recognition would become a non-issue. It does a Pontius Pilate and washes its hand from any responsibility on whatever is happening in Gaza. That is typical of a government - like ours - that has no soul, no heart, no conscience, no moral fibre.

Not only so, but by not recognising the state of Palestine - a symbolic gesture that Malta can surely take and should have taken quite some time ago - it actively condones, endorses, and blesses all the mass atrocities that the state of Israel is perpetrating against innocent civilians in full breach of International Criminal Law.

The mission of the Israeli government is clear: to kill, day by day, the Gazans through starvation until not even one remains standing. This policy of starvation has got nothing to do with Hamas. Hamas is only a pretext for land grab and population transfer/extermination. It is the implementation of a deliberate, cruel, malicious, and diabolic policy, approved by the state of Israel, aimed at taking possession of land territory in Gaza at all costs, even if that entails the extermination right to the last soul of innocent Gazans. Israel is not targeting Hamas: it is targeting innocent civilians. It is a policy also endorsed by the United States of America, the European Union, Germany, and the United Kingdom, amongst others.

Our government, through its silence, is approving all that is taking place in Gaza. Silence is bystander complicity in genocide.

What has the Maltese government done, in terms of its constitutional duty of active neutrality and the pursuit of peace, to put pressure on Israel to stop the extermination of innocent civilians? Why is our government not speaking up? Why is it voiceless on such a fundamental issue to human rights? Why is it condoning genocide?

Genocide is the worst crime that can be committed by humanity. It is the most serious of all crimes on the Maltese statute book and it could not be otherwise. Even our Criminal Law criminalises the crime of genocide in the Criminal Code and in the International Criminal Court Act. Yet, this notwithstanding, our government continues, through its inaction, passivity, and indifference, to support Israel in its genocide of the Gazans who are expendable to the Maltese government and can be conveniently done away with.

Kevin Aquilina is Professor of Law at the Faculty of Laws of the University of Malta