UK Arms Sales to Israel – is it going to stop now?

JVL Introduction

We await the decision of the High Court regarding the Judicial Review on whether the UK government has illegally supplied Israel parts that may be used to attack Palestinians. The article belows provides a summary of the case.  Most astonishing perhaps has been the defence arguments of the lawyers acting for the government.  They have argued that there is No evidence of genocide in Gaza and just before the case began the Guardian reported that one of the arguments would be that “the UK’s F-35 exports (are) more important than stopping genocide” .

Much is made by Labour politicians of the tiny suspension of arms licences to Israel but these never included the components of the F35s and reports show that UK Labour approved more weapons to Israel in three months than Tories did in four years.

There were angry words uttered by the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy on May 20th following the joint statement by the Leaders of France, Canada and the UK, threatening concrete action and targeted sanctions.  However, the surveillance flights over Gaza by RAF planes from Akrotiri are continuing, something about which government Minister Angela Eagle expressed great pride even as the court case was going on as you can see on this short video.  

The only concrete action taken so far is sanctions on a few settlers – who Labour label “illegal” settlers.  He seems to have forgotten that all settlers are illegal under international law.  When even papers such as the Metro are saying Keir Starmer’s words on Israel aren’t enough and we need action.

they can hardly continue to argue that those of us who have been calling for the end of arms sales are a small fringe.

LL

This article was originally published by New Internatonalist on Fri 16 May 2025. Read the original here.