The UK must stop fuelling Israel’s war on Gaza
By: Tim Bierley
Date: 2 November 2024
Campaigns: Palestine
One year into Israel’s assault on Gaza, a ceasefire seems further away than ever. From the arms trade to security ties, the UK must stop aiding and abetting, writes TIM BIERLEY.
Over the past year, the world has watched in horror as Israel has carried out a campaign of incredible violence in Gaza. Unimaginable suffering has become an everyday occurrence and the images that are streamed daily on social media will surely haunt us forever. And shamefully, it has done so with UK support.
Israel’s response to the 7 October attacks and the horrific killing of civilians on that day has been one of extreme collective punishment of the people of Gaza. It has driven more than 90% of the over 2 million people living in Gaza from their homes. It has killed at least 40,000 people and injured hundreds of thousands more. It has cut off food and water, blocked and bombed aid convoys, and destroyed civilian infrastructure, including most of the functioning hospitals. In total, it has damaged or destroyed an estimated two-thirds of the buildings in the 140 square mile territory.
Clearly, this is not a scale of death and destruction that can be justified as self-defence, or a series of unfortunate accidents. It has become increasingly evident that it is Israel’s state policy to place no value on Palestinian lives.
Acting with impunity
For months after 7 October, Rishi Sunak’s UK government backed Israel’s actions unconditionally, encouraging Israel to act with impunity, even as it committed the most blatant and appalling violations of humanitarian law. It gave support to the killing in Gaza both through diplomatic cover and the steady supply of weapons. This included key parts for Israel’s fleet of F-35 fighter jets, described by their manufacturer as “the deadliest in the world”.
The British public never agreed to this and a huge movement of workers, activists and ordinary people emerged to demand the UK ends its complicity in Israel’s campaign of violence. A central demand has been for the UK to ban the export of arms to Israel. Over 25,000 Global Justice Now supporters have joined this demand – and polls show again and again that the majority of the British public agrees.
In January, the scale and brutality of Israel’s attacks on Gaza was such that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opened a genocide investigation into Israel’s operations. And in June, a comprehensive UN report accused Israel of grave war crimes, including using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians.
Yet the Conservative government made clear that it would continue signing off weapons sales to Israel. Between October 2023 and May 2024 it didn’t reject a single arms export licence to the country – despite previous Conservative governments having suspended arms to Israel on several occasions in the past.
An inadequate shift
When Labour was elected to government in July, they did so promising to restore the rules-based international order and uphold human rights, offering some opportunity for change.
The new foreign secretary, David Lammy, made the positive step of restoring funding to UNRWA, the UN body responsible for delivering aid in Gaza, after his Conservative predecessor shamefully suspended UK donations earlier in the year. And in September, Lammy also announced the suspension of some arms sales to Israel (see page 3).
But while this was an important win for the movement, the decision allowed for significant exceptions, including allowing the continued export of parts for the F-35 jet, an aircraft that has been used in some of the largest massacres in Gaza.
Just as concerning was an obscure announcement in July when Keir Starmer’s government stated that Israel was a priority country for deeper trade relations with the UK. It came just weeks after another landmark intervention by the ICJ, with the world’s highest court confirming that Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land is illegal.
What’s more, it found that Israel’s settlement-related measures and legislation treating Palestinians differently from settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are a breach of Article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. This refers to two particularly severe forms of racial discrimination: racial segregation and apartheid. The ICJ called for Israel to end this system of racist discrimination as rapidly as possible, and placed obligations on all states not to aid or assist the occupation.
Yet the 2030 Roadmap for trade already agreed lays out ongoing and enhanced security, defence, science and technology relationships between the UK and Israel. And the UK’s trade strategy for negotiations over a new trade deal, first developed under the Conservative administration, says ministers will prioritise deeper cooperation in industries heavily involved in breaches of international law.
Israel’s war economy
Palestinian human rights organisations have demonstrated how Israel’s artificial intelligence and cyber sectors, for example, owe much of their success to unregulated testing on Palestinians, while Amnesty International has shown clearly how their pervasive role in surveillance and control has served to entrench Israel’s occupation.
Israel’s burgeoning tech industry owes much to its close military ties, with many of Israel’s tech trainees coming from Unit 8200, an army division infamous for its mass surveillance of Palestinians.
It is unsurprising, then, that many of Israel’s surveillance technologies originate in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, where Israel’s military rule allows firms to prototype and refine their products on populations whose rights to privacy have been stripped from them. Speaking to Israeli- Palestinian magazine +972, veterans of the unit have described how closely the unit works with the private sector on technology development.
What’s more, while consecutive Conservative and Labour governments have correctly adopted the position of non-recognition of Israeli settlements due to their illegality under international law, there is a glaring anomaly: settlement products are permitted entry into the UK.
This is not logically consistent with the legal obligation of nonrecognition, and amounts to aiding and assisting the maintenance of an unlawful situation given that such imports help to sustain Israel’s settlement economy and to further the forcible transfer of Palestinians from their homes and land.
According to legal advice we commissioned in August, facilitating trade that allows Israel or Israeli companies to profit from the Occupied Palestinian Territory could leave ministers and senior civil servants personally liable for breaches of international law.
No more business as usual
Over the last twelve months Western governments including the UK have consistently failed to stand up for international law and put genuine pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change course. The result has been to embolden him, with Israel expanding its attacks to include an invasion of Lebanon in October, displacing 1.2 million people, and at the time of writing launching a new assault on northern Gaza including the Jabalia refugee camp, with devastating consequences.
It has taken a huge movement to drag the UK government into action on an arms embargo, however partial. But we will need much more again to keep the pressure on Keir Starmer’s government to end material support for Israel’s aggression – and that includes economic policies like trade deals. We must force ministers to recognise that there can be no more ‘business-as-usual’ while Israel continues to violate international norms.
This article is from the November 2024 issue of Ninety-Nine, the magazine for Global Justice Now members.
Join as a member today to receive it three times a year in the post.
Photo: Palestinians look at the aftermath of Israeli bombing of Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, in June 2024. Credit: AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi.
