The UK may have paused trade talks with Israel, but arms exports are still the elephant in the room

On Wednesday June 4, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled a bill in Parliament calling for an inquiry into the UK's involvement, and possible complicity, in Israeli military operations in Gaza.

His intervention is likely to heap yet more pressure on a government struggling to justify, in the face of mounting and sustained criticism, its ongoing licensing of arms sales to Israel. 

Last month, the UK government adopted its hardest line yet in response to what it called the Israeli government’s continuing “egregious actions and rhetoric” in Gaza, with Foreign Secretary David Lammy announcing a suspension of free-trade negotiations with Israel, a review of the 2030 Road Map for UK-Israel bilateral relations, and imposing further sanctions on violent settlers and related entities.

Lammy made clear that the Israeli government’s planned mass forced displacement of Palestinians, which would amount to an escalation of its ethnic cleansing, is “morally unjustifiable, wholly disproportionate and utterly counter-productive.” But when pressed on what more the government might do, he was deliberately vague, saying “we will take further concrete action if necessary.” 

If the British government is serious about exerting pressure on the Israeli government, there is a glaringly obvious ‘concrete action’ it can take: a complete and comprehensive arms embargo on Israel. 

Last September, the UK Government imposed a partial arms suspension when it assessed that there was a clear risk that UK military components exported to Israel and used in Gaza might be used to facilitate or carry out serious violations of international humanitarian law.

The suspension is meant to cover all arms and military equipment used by Israeli forces in the current hostilities in Gaza, which, according to the government, is just 30 of the approximately 350 arms export licenses to Israel.

These suspensions fall well short of a comprehensive embargo and do not include equipment exported to Israel under the remaining 300 arms licenses that the Government assessed are not for military use in Gaza. This includes aircraft used in training and other naval equipment. 

In fact, Recent media reports suggest that the current Labour government approved more weapons licenses to Israel in three months last year than the Conservative government did in the preceding four years.    

Disturbingly, the UK government also created a legal loophole that means that UK-built components continue to be used in Israel’s fleet of F-35 fighter jets, a workhorse in Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza. F-35 jets were reportedly used in an attack on Al-Mawasi, an Israeli-declared ‘safe zone’, which it is said killed approximately 90 people in July 2024. 

While the UK doesn’t supply components for the F-35 directly to Israel, Israel is free to source them through a ‘global spares pool’ programme, which the UK continues to supply and which is owned by the US Department of Defence.

The government has already acknowledged that its supply of F-35 components for potential use in Israel is in breach of its own arms export control laws, but this loophole also leaves the UK government at risk of breaching its international obligations to prevent genocide and not be complicit in war crimes. 

If history tells us anything, Lammy is right. The UK must act in the face of these ‘monstrous’ plans, but it must also be willing to use the most powerful levers at its disposal.

The political pressure exerted on apartheid South Africa included a comprehensive arms embargo, and it is time for the UK government to take this important step. Then, states used the UN General Assembly and later the Security Council to impose the embargo. Now, in the face of a US veto at the Security Council, it rests on states like the UK to demonstrate bold global leadership. 

Watching the debate last month in Parliament, it was clear that the Foreign Secretary was outraged at the actions of the Israeli government, which, given the UK’s unwillingness to call out Israeli abuses to date, felt like a sea-change in Anglo-Israeli relations. But the question is, what will it take to bring an end to the crimes being committed against Palestinians? If the UK government is serious about taking action to prevent genocide, anything less than a complete and comprehensive arms embargo will fall short.  

Yasmine Ahmed is UK Director at Human Rights Watch

Follow her on X: @YasmineAhmed001

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.