British Regime Continues to Support Israel's Genocide in Gaza While Unleashing Wave of Repression Against Palestine Solidarity Activists and Journalists

But the token measure, announced on Monday by foreign minister David Lammy, amounts to less than 9 percent of British arms export licenses to Israel.

Asa Winstanley September 6, 2024

Activism and BDS Beat

The token measure, announced on Monday by foreign minister David Lammy, amounts to less than 9 percent of British arms export licenses to Israel.

And, as I argued on The Electronic Intifada livestream on Wednesday, the move was more of a smokescreen for British complicity in genocide than anything else.

Britain is a leading partner in the genocide, as the arrest and draconian bail conditions of Sarah Wilkinson last week shows. Wilkinson is a prominent activist and social media poster on Palestinian rights.

You can watch the full segment and discussion in the video above.

Considering Israel’s openly declared intent to carry out a genocide in Gaza since 7 October – and the probable death toll of some 200,000 people bombed, shot, burned and starved to death by the Zionist regime since then – Lammy’s speech in the British parliament announcing the measures was nothing less than outrageous softpeddling.

He bizarrely said only that there was a “risk” that the arms for which the licenses are now suspended “might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law” (my emphasis).

Lammy explained that out of the 350 licenses Britain grants to allow arms exports to Israel’s genocidal regime, only “around 30” would be suspended.

The Guardian reported that British military exports to Israel amounted to $55 million in 2023.

The minister explicitly clarified that the biggest component of Britain’s support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza would carry on as normal. Some 79 British companies supply parts for the F-35 bomber jets currently being used to help annihilate Gaza and they can keep doing so.

Arms trade expert Anna Stavrianakis, a professor at the University of Sussex, said Britain was still complicit with Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

“Any state or company supplying parts for F-35s is complicit in a genocidal war. That includes the 79 companies on the UK government's open licence for the F-35,” Stavrianakis stated.

“I have directly asked UK govt officials why they haven't revoked that licence. Met with blank stares and silence.”

In his speech Lammy was at pains to point out that the decision was “not an arms embargo” and that the measure would not have “a material impact on Israel’s security.”

Lammy clarified that he still strongly supports Israel. He even called himself a “liberal progressive Zionist” and parroted typical Israeli regime talking points about its non-existent “right to exist and defend itself.”

The subtext of the speech was very clear: David Lammy and the rest of the British regime are still strongly supporting Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip – an exterminationist campaign which is now threatening to engulf the West Bank too.

Like most of the rest of the British government’s key ministers, Lammy is a supporter of Labour Friends of Israel and is in the pocket of the UK’s Israel lobby.

That – along with its subservience to Washington DC – is why the British government is highly unlikely to ever enact a real arms embargo on Israel.

One of Lammy’s first visits abroad after he was appointed to his post on 5 July was to occupied Palestine to meet with Israel’s genocidal leaders.

He met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Israel’s supposedly “centrist” president Isaac Herzog – a man so racist that he made clear in October last year that the “entire nation” of Palestinians was the target of the genocidal campaign in Gaza.

Remember that in July’s election, Labour lost four of its seats to new, independent lawmakers who campaigned mostly on the issue of ending the genocide in Gaza – and came within a hair’s breadth of losing two others.

Combined with expelled former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (who won his seat back as an independent) that makes up a small bloc of five in the British parliament challenging Labour from the left.

The Green Party also won three new seats (although two of these were taken from Conservatives).

In a statement the alliance called for a “total arms embargo” and said that it was “beyond shameful” that it had taken the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians for the government to admit to a “risk” of British arms being used in Israeli war crimes.

At the same time that the British regime was ensuring it would continue to support Israel’s genocide militarily, it sent an even clearer message that it would continue to do the bidding of America and Israel.

英国の影の政治警察、いわゆる「対テロ」部隊は、パレスチナ連帯活動家やジャーナリストに対して新たな弾圧の波を解き放った。

それは西側諸国のイスラエルと大量虐殺の同盟政府、そしてイスラエルそのものとして起こります

The above is the detailed content of British Regime Continues to Support Israel's Genocide in Gaza While Unleashing Wave of Repression Against Palestine Solidarity Activists and Journalists. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!