The Labour Government has suspended some arms exports to Israel following a review that found a “clear risk” that U.K. arms may be used to violate international humanitarian law.
Around 30 of 350 licences will be suspended, a decision which has reportedly sparked alarm in Washington, while Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu branded it “shameful” as he vowed to win Israel’s war against Hamas “with or without British arms”.
It seems Israel is being singled out by the antisemitic Left again, under pressure from Muslim and pro-Gaza voters. In the Telegraph, Jake Wallis Simons summarises the hypocrisy of the U.K. suspending arms sales to the one democracy in the Middle East while maintaining business as usual with the rest.
Over the last three years, Britain sold £3.1 billion of weapons to Qatar, the world’s foremost sponsor of Sunni jihadism and the principal benefactor of Hamas. It sold £1.9 billion’s worth to Saudi Arabia, which has been engaged in a bloody war in Yemen that has not, shall we say, been fought entirely according to democratic norms.
Turkey, which has crushed the Kurds once again with less concern for human rights than one might hope, received £799 million in British arms. The United Arab Emirates, often viewed as a dictatorship in Whitehall, purchased a £416 million cache, while the Egyptian police state was able to buy a £318 million arsenal as it continued its flirtation with Islamism and enthusiasm for corruption.
By contrast, Israel, the Middle East’s sole democracy and the only power to respect the rights of women and minorities, which is locked in an existential struggle against the forces of jihadism that menace us all, bought £83 million of British arms, a sum that constitutes just 1% of its total weapons purchases.
Yet it is the Jewish state that attracted David Lammy’s criticism yesterday, as he announced that he was suspending 30 arms export licences to Jerusalem amid misinformation that it has been prosecuting the war in Gaza to excess. …
What is the Government thinking? Does the Foreign Secretary really want to invite scrutiny of every international recipient of British weapons?
Part of the problem is that although Israel is very good at war-fighting, it is nowhere near as effective when it comes to public relations. On that front, even as its leaders peer into the abyss of destruction, Hamas has been the out-and-out winner.
The facts, however, are undeniable. Even given the unique challenges of Gaza – the enemy strategy of human sacrifice, the underground terror city, the foe that doesn’t mind dying – the Jewish state is fighting a cleaner war than has ever been waged anywhere in the world.
You wouldn’t know it from your television. You wouldn’t know it from social media or the progressive ideologues that dominate so many of our institutions. But you would know it if you considered the facts properly and weighed British arms sales to Israel against those to that list of autocracies provided above (not including the United States).
Given Labour’s massive majority, which frees it to govern without concern for special interest groups, this suspension of 30 arms export licences will surely prove an ill-judged blip, to be rectified when wiser heads prevail.
