Keir Starmer and Nancy Pelosi in Washington, July 2024
Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s recent announcement that the UK is suspending some arms export licenses to Israel was remarkable. For the first time, the government has acknowledged that weapons supplied by Britain might be used to violate the laws of war.
More than saving Palestinian lives, however, the Foreign Secretary’s primary concern may be with placating campaigners and fending off legal challenge in light of the UK’s abysmal failure to stop what is most likely a genocide perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians. In that context, here are three reasons why we must keep up the pressure.
First, the government’s suspension policy has some major loopholes that continue to endanger Palestinians. Most significantly, the government has suspended exports of fighter jet components, but excluded one of Israel’s most important weapons: the F-35.
The UK is part of a global supply chain making the F-35 fighter jet. UK companies produce 15 percent of each fighter jet, which is used by 20 countries. There is no reasonable way to conclude that the F-35 could not be used to commit war crimes in Gaza. This is especially true as, on the same day as Lammy’s speech, a Danish newspaper revealed that F-35s had been involved in a July strike in a so-called Gaza ‘safe-zone’ that Israel claims targeted Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. Through the use of eight 2000-pound bombs, the strike predictably resulted in more than 90 reported deaths and hundreds of injuries sustained by people without adequate access to medical care.
The decision not to suspend F-35 licenses illustrates how little will to adhere to its own laws Britain has in its F-35 partnership with the United States. Were the UK to strike Israel from its list of approved F-35 recipients, it would be a crucial blow to the genocidal war machine in Gaza.
Second, there are major weaknesses in the government’s review. In particular, the assessment of licences was limited to Gaza, despite the fact that Israel is also conducting a major military operation in the occupied West Bank, with hundreds of Palestinians already killed or displaced this year. Despite the government’s lip service to Palestinian sovereignty and to human rights and humanitarian law, it may be contributing to breaches of law that go beyond Gaza.
In Gaza itself, the Labour government claims it can’t assess whether Israel has committed even a single violation of international humanitarian law. This abuses the government’s own rules, which require an assessment of whether there is a clear risk that weapons might be misused. Such an assessment does not require a definitive judgment that Israel has violated international law — even if it is now widely accepted that it has.
Evidence of Israel’s violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza has also been publicly available for months. On Tuesday, a former FCDO adviser claimed that under the previous government, Foreign Secretary David Cameron was advised on the clarity of this evidence, but sat on the advice to avoid having to suspend arms export licences. Both Conservative and Labour governments have been very well able to condemn war crimes when they come from Russia or Hamas; the inability to evaluate the scale of Israeli crimes and draw comprehensive conclusions is only further proof that our politicians simply don’t want to know about violations against Palestinians.
Third and finally, we must continue to exert pressure on the government because it is making a difference. Many who witness daily the brutality and suffering inflicted on the people of Palestine, now and for the last 76 years, and even those who listen to the families of the Israeli hostages calling for a ceasefire to return their loved ones, will be rightfully dissatisfied with the Labour government’s piecemeal changes. Yet Labour is clearly moving on the issue.
This change did not occur because Labour discovered its moral compass: it happened because hundreds of thousands of people across the country have come out to protest in solidarity with Palestinians for decades and especially in the last eleven months. It happened because people voted for independent and Green candidates in the general election who push the government on Gaza. It happened because of student encampments and direct action, often in direct solidarity with the call from Palestinian trade unions to an end to military cooperation with Israel. It happened because campaigners, medical professionals, and ordinary citizens have written letters, statements, and social media posts. It happened because of legal challenges.
Change doesn’t just happen: people make it happen. Now is the time to keep pushing.
Anna Stavrianakis is a staff member at Shadow World Investigations, a Professor of International Relations at Sussex University, and a co-author of The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade.
Ruth Rohde is a researcher and project coordinator at Shadow World Investigations UK.
Andrew Feinstein is a former ANC MP, the author of The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade’, and an independent candidate in his home constituency of Holborn & St. Pancras
Source: Tribune
