Why the UK refuses to do the one thing that could stop Israel's 'intolerable' war on Gaza
What Israel is doing in Gaza is “morally wrong and unjustifiable”, its actions “intolerable” and “an affront to the values of the British people”.
These are not the words of a pro-Palestine activist, but of the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, who has now suspended negotiations on a new free trade agreement and vowed to review co-operation on the 2030 bilateral road map.
But the UK government still won’t take the single fastest and most effective step: ending military cooperation with Israel and halting all arms sales.
Lammy said in parliament that “arms are not getting to Israel that could be used in Gaza”. This is false. The UK government last year suspended a small number of arms export licences - around 10 percent - after determining that Israel is not committed to complying with international humanitarian law, but it allowed UK participation in the F-35 fighter jet programme to continue.
In addition, new data from both Israel and the UK raises concerns about the scale and end use of UK-supplied weaponry.
In its September 2024 decision to restrict certain arms sales, the government decided on the narrowest possible approach: it suspended licences for weapons with a direct use in Gaza, but it did not halt wider arms exports to Israel for use by the army - such as for training purposes or for its illegal occupation of the West Bank - or for Israeli industry use.
Yet there is a much wider pattern of British military collaboration with Israel and its illegal practices, beyond direct violence in Gaza.
Even within the government’s narrow position, there is a massive loophole. The suspension does not cover components that go to the USA to be put into F35s to be sent to Israel. UK companies provide 15 percent of every new F-35 fighter jet made.
Neither does the suspension cover components that reach Israel via a global spare parts pool. The pool is coordinated by the US Department of Defense and arms companies Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney.
Yet apparently there is no system in place to track the movement of parts into and out of the pool - which the British government says makes it impossible for it to prevent UK-made parts from reaching Israel.
Lack of political will
This is hard to believe, to the point of absurdity. The world’s largest military producer and massive arms companies, unable to track their supply chain? If faulty parts were found, you can bet they’d want to pinpoint where they came from.
Instead, this appears to be a question of political will: tracking parts to avoid them being used in a genocide simply isn’t on the agenda.
We know that Israel is using F-35s to bomb Gaza, assist ground troops and implement the blockade. The Israeli army has reportedly conducted more than 15,000 flight hoursand 8,000 missions over Gaza since 7 October 2023. This past March, Israel used F-35s to break the ceasefire, killing more than 400 Palestinians in a single day.
UK parts have been central to this killing spree. The UK government licence for the F-35 was used 14 times more in 2023 than in any previous year.
The UK government accepts that there is a clear risk that F-35 components might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law. Nonetheless, the government asserts in court documents that this is outweighed by the “immensely serious and imminent risks to international peace and security” posed by a suspension of F-35 parts.
What are these immensely serious and imminent risks?
Apparently, they are too sensitive for the public to know. Court documents are heavily redacted, leaving only vague claims about damage to the credibility of Nato war plans and a potential reduction of Nato air control in the event of prolonged disruption or conflict in other parts of the world.
These ambiguous risks are apparently deemed to be more serious than genocide or other war crimes against Palestinians, and more imminent than the actually occurring, live-streamed devastation of Gaza. Cloaked in the language of national security, and hidden behind the black pen of redactions, we are asked to take these claims at face value, despite what we know is happening in Gaza.
In addition to the F-35 loophole, a new report by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Workers for a Free Palestine and Progressive International - relying on data from the Israel Tax Authority - suggests that the UK might have continued directly shipping F-35 parts to Israel even after the suspension.
MP Zarah Sultana and 41 of her colleagues, along with a number of other groups, have demanded that Lammy respond to questions raised by the report. The government did not respond to the letter, and was challenged in Parliament about this failure.
Contorted justifications
Furthermore, the latest UK government licensing data shows that licences worth £127.6 million ($172m) were granted to Israel between October and December 2024, the months following the suspension. That’s more licences than in 2020-23 combined.
The equipment licensed is mostly military radars, components, software and targeting equipment, prompting the parliamentary business and trade committee to ask government ministers for oral evidence in an effort to understand how they can be certain this equipment isn’t being used in Gaza.
As all of this has been going on, the UK government has been in court on a case brought by the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq and the Global Legal Action Network. They have spent the past year and a half fighting the government over its arms export policy, and more recently over its decision to exempt F-35 parts from the licensing suspension.
The government’s main strategy has been to claim the court doesn’t have jurisdiction to assess the case. If the judges accept this, it will be a death knell for arms export control policy. If the courts cannot assess whether the government implemented its own legally binding policy properly, what is the point of having controls?
The UK government’s position is growing increasingly untenable, and seems more brittle by the day. Its suspension of trade talks with Israel is a paltry response to what it calls an intolerable situation.
Just hours after Lammy’s statement, another RAF surveillance plane took off towards Gaza to provide intelligence to Israel; and days later, UK trade envoy Lord Austin visited Israel to, in his words, “drum up business for Britain”.
The mismatch between government practice and Lammy’s confected outrage speaks volumes.
Meanwhile, the government is using counter-terrorism legislation to punish Palestine activists, prompting UN experts to criticise its heavy handedness.
Ongoing public and parliamentary opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza is forcing the government into ever-more contorted justifications to avoid the one thing that would materially force Israel to reconsider its practices: suspending all arms transfers to and from Israel, and halting all military cooperation.
This would have a swift and concrete effect on Israel’s ability to carry out its assault on Palestinians and its occupation of Palestinian land.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.