Britain may be approaching an “Al Yamamah” moment in its relations with Israel. In 2006, after a decade-long corruption scandal over allegations involving BAE Systems and the Saudis during the Al Yamamah arms deal, Tony Blair shut down an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office on grounds of national security.
We know wrongdoing has happened, was Blair’s rationale; our law says it must be investigated; but to prosecute would trigger the “real and immediate risk of a collapse in UK/Saudi security, intelligence and diplomatic cooperation”. And that was that.
Today we can see the wrongs that Israel has perpetrated in its war against Hamas in real time. The killing of three former British servicemen, while delivering food aid for World Central Kitchen, is just one example.
At a wider level, as revealed by the Israeli media, the Israeli Defence Force has used targeting algorithms that look designed to inflict massively greater civilian casualties than permitted under international law, and to expand the definition of military targets beyond what the laws of armed conflict allow.
In November, the Middle East news sites +972 Magazine and Local Call revealed the existence of a system called “The Gospel”, which used AI to mark civilian buildings as legitimate military targets. Last week, the same team revealed a system known as “Lavender”, which classified up to 37,000 men in Gaza as connected to Hamas and therefore as legitimate targets for air strikes even when they were in their family homes.
As someone who reported from Gaza in 2014 and saw reckless actions by both sides, I have little doubt that Israel has committed war crimes this time, and that the UK now runs the risk of breaching its own laws through the continued supply of arms.
On top of that, there is the case put by more than 750 judges and senior lawyers, in an open letter to the UK government: that the risk of famine, combined with the “plausible risk of genocide” demonstrated at the International Court of Justice, obliges the UK to suspend arms sales to Israel, impose sanctions on Israeli politicians who have made genocidal statements, and make unilateral moves to start feeding Gaza’s population.
The UK government, having promised to release the advice it’s getting from its own lawyers, is refusing to do so – though it insists it is still legal to sell arms to Israel.
Yet we know, from existing court documents, that the government’s case is untenable.
In January, government lawyers argued that: “Without accurate information on real-time IDF decision-making… we have been unable to make a case-by-case assessment on Israel’s compliance with IHL (international humanitarian law).”
They also claimed there was “insufficient evidence” over whether siege conditions and concerns about humanitarian access constitute breaches of international law.
Since then, the ICJ has made its ruling on the genocide risk, and the evidence is mounting that breaches of international law are taking place.
Given that the UK supplies less than 1% of Israel’s arms, why is the government running the risk of legal complicity in war crimes? The answer takes us back to Al Yamamah.
If the west stopped arming Israel, that would be a green light for its strategic enemies – Syria, Hezbollah and Iran – to unleash a rain of missiles, terror attacks and ultimately ground incursions with the aim of destroying the Israeli state.
Israel as a smoking ruin is the exact fantasy Islamism has peddled to the region for decades. It is what the October 7 attacks were designed to inspire. And there is no way the UK, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, could allow that.
To resolve this dilemma, western leaders need to start practising statecraft, fast. The essential problem is Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Netanyahu approaches every crisis by making it existential: for him, Israel’s survival is always the smallest stake on the poker table. That’s how he has forced Joe Biden to acquiesce to a series of counter-productive responses to the October 7 attacks.
Israel should have moved fast from all-out war into a counter-terror strategy designed to weaken Hamas to the point where it could be replaced by the Palestinian Authority. Having – against all advice – chosen to invade Gaza, it should have moved to stabilisation as fast as possible.
Instead, Netanyahu pledged no collaboration with the PA, war to the death with Hamas and – critically – no systematic stabilisation inside Gaza.
Without that, you run the continued risk of deadly fiascos like the one that killed the WCK volunteers. The Israelis “mistakenly” thought they were hitting a Hamas convoy because, just a few hundred yards from their frontline, they have no connection with the social reality around them.
All the solutions are obvious: an urgent western-led humanitarian aid effort, with the Israelis sidelined from decisions about what supplies go in; an Arab-led stabilisation force with UN backing; the PA as the legitimate government of Gaza. But none can happen unless Netanyahu is replaced by a leader prepared to end Israel’s incompetence and recklessness.
And here’s where it gets really hard: is that what the Israeli people want? Is that what they will vote for?
The legal case looks clear for a suspension of arms sales to Israel. But any decision to override firm legal advice would be as ludicrous as Blair’s response to Al Yamamah.
Whatever happens, the UK has to send a message: Israel’s allies demand realism, responsibility and a change of strategy.
