No arms for Israel!

photo: Rana Aria, Hammersmith & Fulham Unison

By New Worker correspondent

Hundreds of thousands of Palestine solidarity supporters took to the streets across the country on Saturday to demand an end to genocidal war in Gaza and an end to British arms sales to Israel. In London demonstrators marched through the heart of the capital to call on the new Labour government to stop arming the Zionist state.
The Starmer government has reportedly suspended the processing of arms export licences for sales to Israel pending an official review. But this is not enough.
Stop the War national convener Lindsey German said “a temporary suspension of the processing of arms export licences to Israel, while David Lammy ponders what to do that won’t hurt his friends in the defence industry or the UK’s relationship with the US and Israel, means little. There must be an immediate ban on all arms sales. Every hour this decision is delayed, more lives are lost. The government must stop facilitating genocide immediately”.
The UK’s deadly arms trade with Israel includes its contribution to the F-16 and F-35 warplanes that Israel is using in its bombardment of the Gaza Strip. 15 per cent of every F35 that Israel is using to bomb Gaza is made by British industry. 
The government’s own Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, under which all arms exports are assessed, states that export licences should not be issued if there is a “clear risk” arms exports might be used in a “serious violation of international humanitarian law”. The Arms Trade Treaty, to which Britain is a State Party, outlines that a State must not export arms if there is “potential” that they could be used to commit violations of international human rights or humanitarian law. It is inconceivable that after over 75 years of Israel’s regime of military occupation and apartheid, and nearly 10 months of Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians in Gaza, with over 40,000 killed, that the government’s legal advice has adjudged that such a risk does not exist.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, together with the Campaign Against Arms Trade and War on Want is calling on the British government to abide by its domestic and international law obligations by immediately introducing a comprehensive military embargo to end the two-way arms trade with Israel and end all further military assistance to Israel, including through the RAF base in Cyprus.