UK has stopped arms sales to Israel before – why not now?

Opposition politicians were quick to point out that such a move had precedent. Margaret Thatcher’s government imposed an arms embargo in 1982 following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Two decades later, Tony Blair enacted a partial ban on weapons exports likely to be used in the Occupied Territories during the Second Intifada. And yet this legal argument, rooted in precedent, doesn’t move today’s political class to understand what forces us to engage with Britain’s century-long support for settler-colonialism in Palestine.

By analysing the suspension of arms sales through the lens of precedent, the constant, day-to-day oppression of the Palestinians is normalised and the British state’s long-term support for Israel’s crimes is excused.

READ MORE: As Israel attacks journalism and kills journalists, why is Western media silent?

If individual acts of brutality and major breaches of international law – such as the Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982 or the IOF’s assault on the Jenin Refugee Camp in 2002 – are isolated as the requirements for an arms embargo, the violence inherent to Israel’s apartheid rule is left unexamined.

In 1982 and 2002, arms sales resumed when popular outcry faded. In 2014, UK-made components for F-16 jets were “almost certainly” used during Operation Cast Lead, when Israeli forces killed some 1400 Palestinians.

This is the cycle of forgetting that, despite having to impose a temporary arms embargo every 20 years, allows the British state to enable Israel’s genocidal onslaught in Gaza today.

Dismantling the international war machine which has killed 17,000 Palestinian children in six months necessitates dispelling the notion that Israel occasionally transgresses international law. Explaining why the US, Britain and Europe are so unwavering in their support for Israel’s crimes, however, requires understanding the illegal occupation of Palestine within the context of global imperialism.

Implicit in Joe Biden’s infamous declaration that "if there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one" is the recognition of Israel as a regional outpost for Western interests.

UK and US support for Israel’s war then does not stem from loyalty, but self-interest – and always has done. When Arthur Balfour guaranteed British support for the settler-colonisation of Palestine in 1917, he was motivated in part by a will to prevent Jewish refugees from seeking sanctuary in Britain.

For the British military governor of Jerusalem, Israel was to be a “loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism”.

Indeed, in the early years of the British Mandate, the same colonial forces who had followed the orders of the British state in Ireland were dispatched to Palestine. Just as they were in Ireland, these men were advised to repress resistance using “whatever measures necessary”.

In his 1979 essay "Zionism From The Standpoint of its Victims”, Edward Said identified an “unmistakable coincidence” between the experiences of the Palestinians at the hands of Zionism and the victims of colonisation “who were described as inferior and subhuman by 19-century imperialists”. Said did not have to wait long for his point to be proved.

Throughout the 1980s, Israel served as a useful proxy for the United States to arm regimes in Latin America that it could not be seen to openly support. Today, Israel exports the technology used to enforce its occupation internationally.

Smart walls, drones, weapons and spyware “battle-tested” on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are sold globally.

Militarised police forces from all around the world, including the United States, are trained in the techniques of oppression by the Israeli security authorities. This is the true meaning of Western “solidarity” with Israel.

In Scotland, we must be wary of rhetoric.

The First Minister has spoken up consistently in support of the people of Palestine. Humza Yousaf called for a ceasefire early and was quick to add his voice to calls for the suspension of arms sales. However, the Scottish Government has granted almost £2 million to defence firms linked to supplying Israel – including Raytheon, Leonardo and BAE Systems – over the last three years. £778,725 in grants was given in 2023/24 alone.

Rhetoric is one thing. However, it is high time these subsidies were cut.

Lyndsey Stonebridge, in her book We Are Free To Change The World, writes that “It is when the experience of powerlessness is at its most acute, when history seems at its most bleak, that the determination to think like a human being, creatively, courageously and complicatedly matters the most.”

Today, thinking courageously and complicatedly means redoubling our efforts to dismantle the war machine and recommitting to the struggle for a world where, from all rivers to all seas, everyone is free.