UK suspends some arms sales to Israel: 'Labour has found itself slammed on every side' - by Lewis Goodall
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Lewis Goodall reacts to the UK announcing to suspend some arms exports to Israel.
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Ever since the appalling events of October 7th, and the humanitarian catastrophe which has taken place in Gaza since Israel’s military response began in earnest, the question of Britain’s military support to Israel has become more and more acute.
In its treatment of civilians in Gaza, there have been repeated accusations that Israel has broken International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and several European countries have banned arms sales accordingly. Up until Monday, the UK government had resisted those calls, arguing that it kept UK arms licences under review.
That review has now completed, and yesterday the still newish Foreign Secretary David Lammy confirmed that His Majesty's Government (HMG) would revoke 30 of 350 licences, largely involving components and machinery, because ministers had been given advice that continued export might mean those components would be used in a way that broke international law.
By any measure, the revocation of less than 10% of UK arms licences is small beer. Micro-beer, indeed, when you consider that the UK itself is not a significant supplier of arms to Israel, accounting for less than 1% of total Israeli weapons imports. But in this debate, of all debates, symbolism is always sharpest.
Labour has found itself slammed on every side; by the left for the paucity of its action, by the right for bridging any brook with Israel at all. The former prime minister Boris Johnson accused the government of abandoning Israel. Others have gone further, arguing (absurdly) that ministers are now siding with Hamas, or at the least that the government ought not to have announced the policy change on the day of hostage burials in Israel.
These arguments are largely fevered and reflect how little room there is for logical thought on this subject, how often they see the war through the prism of their own political identities.
1) The previous government made clear that licences were always under review. There has been a review and clear legal advice. The new government is acting accordingly. If HMG ignored it that would be tantamount to the UK saying it was unconcerned about potential IHL breaches and potentially violate the law itself.
2) The idea that this is a great insult to the people of Israel is questionable, at best. It ignores the actual politics of Israel right now, including the substantial number of people in Israel who want a ceasefire/hostage agreement (and have just had a general strike to that effect) and/or disagree with the Netanyahu position. That includes the hostage families themselves. To argue that somehow this makes the UK opposed to Israel itself, or is abandoning Israel given the UK's wider strategic support is absurd.
3) The argument about timing is understandable. But there is a bloody war going in Gaza. The timing would never be ideal. Palestinians/Israeli soldiers are dying every day. Again, suggesting it shouldn't happen because it was the day of the hostages' funerals is to elide those families with the Israeli's government, to suggest they are one and the same. That is especially darkly ironic when we remember it is those families who have spearheaded the opposition to Netanyahu.
The response of the last 24 hours has been part of a wider trend which has made the debate around this issue even more toxic- the deliberate elision of Israel’s people and its government, often, bizarrely by Israel’s “friends”.
We are rightly censorious about attempts by bad faith actors and anti-semites to elide the actions of Israel and British Jewry- no British Jew should be held responsible for the actions of the Israeli state, just as we wouldn’t hold a British Muslim accountable for the actions of say, Saudi Arabia.
It beggars belief that the British government, a close strategic ally of Israel, has announced a partial suspension of arms licences, at a time when Israel is fighting a war for its very survival on seven fronts forced upon it on the 7th October, and at the very moment when six…
— Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis (@chiefrabbi) September 2, 2024
But when the Chief Rabbi of the UK wades into this relatively minor decision by the UK government, it precisely draws that connection and makes that separation harder in the public debate.
Netanyahu, like many populists, has tried to suggest that his government’s interests and Israel’s interests are the same. They are not- those British voices arguing that for Britain to err from Netanyahu’s policies is to err from Israel, or worse Jewry itself are wrong.
To think otherwise is to believe that the UK and others must always support everything that this Israeli government and Netanyahu does, which would be bizarre, especially given the sheer number of Israeli’s desperately opposed to the way he has prosecuted this war and what he may do to keep himself in office.
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