Hands Around Parliament, London 18th July 2024.
Stop the War Coalition has described David Lammy’s decision to suspend some arms sales to Israel as an “admission of guilt” and a half-hearted gesture that will do nothing to put an end to Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.
The anti-war organisation pointed out that suspending 30 arms export licences is less than 10 per cent of the total and doesn’t include components for F35 fighter jets which we know to have been used by Israel to kill dozens of Gaza civilians, including women and children.
Lindsey German, Stop the War Convenor, said:
“This suspension of just 30 licences is a tiny fraction of the number Britain issues. It’s clear that the new Labour government has no intention of a full and comprehensive ban on arms sales to apartheid Israel, only of half-hearted gestures brought on by some small sense of guilt at its complicity in the genocide we are all witnessing daily on our device screens.
“If there’s a ‘clear risk’ that these particular licences could be used to violate international law, where is the evidence that the rest of them don’t? David Lammy must publish the legal advice that has prompted this move.
“The government continues to be complicit in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza and we will not stop demanding a total ban on all arms sales to Israel and an end to the political relationship with Israel that has seen so many MPs, including Lammy, receive massive donations from the pro-Israel lobby.”