Labour in the dock over arms sales to Israel

This week, the UK government is being challenged in court over its decision to keep supplying F-35 fighter jet components to global pools which are used by Israel.

The landmark case has been brought by Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq with support from Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), Oxfam, and Human Rights Watch.

Al-Haq is arguing that the UK government’s “carve out” for F-35s, meaning fighter jet parts can be exported from Britain to Israel via third countries, is in breach of its international and domestic legal obligations.

Over 15 percent of every F-35 is produced in Britain, with over 100 companies contributing to the fighter jet’s supply chain. Those warplanes have been utilised extensively by Israel in its ongoing attacks in Gaza, and have been modified to carry and drop large ordnance.

Last year, a Danish media outlet revealed that one of Israel’s F-35 jets was used in a devastating attack in Gaza on the designated safe zone of Al-Mawasi, killing 90 people and injuring at least 300 more.

The “carve out” is being challenged on several grounds. Al-Haq argues it’s not consistent with “respect for the UK’s international obligations” or its “domestic law… obligations”, and that “it gives rise to a significant risk of facilitating crime”.

Put in more stark terms, Britain’s decision to indirectly supply arms to Israel amid the Gaza genocide implicates the UK government in Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The UK government doesn’t see it that way.

It’s arguing in court that “it is not possible to suspend licensing F-35 components for use by Israel without wide impacts to the whole F-35 programme”, and that any suspension would create “disruption for partner aircraft” and “undermine US confidence in the UK”.

At the same time, the government’s lawyers claim they’ve seen no evidence that a genocide is occurring in Gaza, or that women and children are being deliberately targeted by Israeli forces.

The UK government, in other words, is engaging in genocide denial so that it can keep supplying arms to a foreign state committing genocide.

What makes this position even more monstrous is that Whitehall has apparently not asked to see any of the footage collected by RAF spy planes over Gaza. Ministers, it seems, do not want to be confronted with evidence of the genocide that they’re embroiled in.

British actress Juliet Stevenson was among those who gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice to support Al-Haq’s legal challenge. She was joined by Palestinian lawyer Ahmed Abofoul, who has lost over 80 members of his family in Gaza. 

Abofoul told the crowd: “I’m here to tell the British government that the blood of our children is on your hands. That the weapons that they send to Israel are tearing our children apart. That the military cooperation they have with Israel is starving our children to death”.

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