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David Lammy’s statement that the UK is the UK is suspending around thirty arms export licences to Israel is welcome.
Following Labour’s withdrawal of the previous government’s objection to the request for war crimes charges against Israeli leaders by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan KC, it confirms a shift in the UK’s stance under the new Government – as the protests of Israeli leaders confirm.
Yet, as Lammy admitted, when he noted that the UK supplies only about one per cent of Israeli arms imports, this is a largely token move.
In particular, the exclusion of F-35 parts from the suspensions, when these planes are used for much of the most murderous bombing, makes it far less effective than it could have been. Certainly, the policy change is nowhere near matching the gravity of Israel’s destruction of Gaza.
Lammy stated that the government “could not arbitrate on whether or not Israel has breached international humanitarian law”.
Yet, the Foreign Office paper supporting his statement refers to its assessment of “Israel’s capability and commitment to comply” with international humanitarian law based on its “record of compliance”.
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This apparently concluded that Israel had failed in its duty as Occupying Power to ensure that sufficient aid had reached the population of Gaza and had been credibly reported to have mistreated detainees. However, it claims that “it has not been possible to reach a determinative judgment on allegations regarding Israel’s conduct of hostilities”, which of course is the overriding issue.
It is hardly conceivable that Lammy’s actual legal advice – which, notably, he has not published – brushed off so easily Israel’s huge, murderous bombardment which has killed tens of thousands, wounded many more and rendered two million homeless, or that it made no reference to either Khan’s charges of grave war crimes in this assault or the International Court of Justice’s conclusion, over six months ago, that Gaza’s population was at “plausible risk” of genocide – a risk that can only have increased with Israel’s defiance of the court’s instructions to change course. We need a whistleblower to tell us what the FO’s lawyers actually think.
In contrast to the Khan’s charge sheet or the ICJ’s judgements, Lammy and his paper skate very lightly over Israel’s outrages.
It is clearly more than credible, as the ICJ’s rulings suggest, that its attacks on Gaza’s civilians are not merely a series of individual war crimes, or even crimes against humanity, but reflect the overall, genocidal intent of Israeli leaders, amply demonstrated by their statements since October 2023, to cripple or destroy its people.
The court will have to decide this question, in response to the case that South Africa has brought against Israel, and Khan could also be considering genocide charges against Benjamin Netanyahu and his fellow-ministers (indeed also against Hamas leaders for the massacres of October 7).
Yet Lammy feels able to ignore the whole issue, which amounts to genocide denial. Nor is this merely an arms trade or legal question.
The UK has a military collaboration agreement with Israel, the details of which are classified, and it has deployed its military to the eastern Mediterranean to support Israel since last October.
In political and diplomatic terms, British leaders have endlessly provided Israel with the cover of “self-defence”, although Israel is engaging in violent aggression against the civilian populations of illegally occupied territories. (Its legitimate defence needs could easily be met by pulling its forces back to its borders – if they had been there on 7 October, Hamas’ atrocities would never have happened).
If this is genocide, not only are Israel’s leaders guilty of orchestrating it, but the UK and other Western leaders are guilty of enabling it.
You do not respond to genocide with gestures; you do not continue to treat a state that is suspected of committing genocide as an ally; and cancelling a number of export licences does not cancel Britain’s complicity.
Lammy said that he was “looking forward”. But Labour needs a much more radical change of policy.
The UK needs to use all its levers to help end Israel’s military action in Gaza, ensure its complete withdrawal from the territory, and allow international agencies full access to support the survivors, as well as halting Israeli aggression in the West Bank.
The UK’s complicity over the last eleven months increases the government’s duty to abandon its support for Israel and seek justice for Palestinians.
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