The UK government has suspended certain arms export licences to Israel due to concerns they could be used in violations of international humanitarian law.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced the decision in the House of Commons today.

Lammy stated that the government’s legal duty is to review export licences when there is a clear risk they might be used to facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law. He cited Criterion 2C of the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, which states the government will “not issue export licences if there is a clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

“The assessment I have received leaves me unable to conclude anything other than that for certain UK arms exports to Israel there exists a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law,” Lammy said. As a result, around 30 of 90 export licences to the Israel Defence Forces have been suspended. These licences include equipment for military aircraft, helicopters, drones, and ground targeting.

The government will publish a summary of the assessment for transparency.

Lammy expressed concerns over the ongoing conflict in Gaza, noting that Israel’s actions have led to “immense loss of civilian life, widespread destruction to civilian infrastructure, and immense suffering.” He acknowledged the difficulty in reaching definitive conclusions on allegations regarding Israel’s conduct due to “insufficient information either from Israel, or other reliable sources.”

Nevertheless, he stated that “it is the assessment of His Majesty’s Government, that Israel could reasonably do much more to ensure lifesaving food and medical supplies reach civilians in Gaza.”

Lammy also raised concerns about the treatment of detainees, citing “credible claims of mistreatment” that the International Committee of the Red Cross has been unable to investigate due to being denied access to places of detention. He noted that both his predecessor and major UK allies have “repeatedly and forcefully raised these concerns with the Israeli government,” but that “regrettably, they have not been addressed satisfactorily.”

George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison

122 COMMENTS

  1. What does free Palestine mean….? Does it mean the destruction of the state of Israel ? Or does it mean a fair two state solution in which the state of Israel and a secure Palestinian state can live in peace..with both states committed to the destruction of the extremists who would see ethic cleansing of one or the other people. The first meaning is antisemitism at its worst and is horrifying, the second what every reasonable minded person would want to see.

    • 👍two state solution all the way. Unfortunately if the present Israeli government had got behind Fata when they put down the gun and helped them deal with Hamas there could have been two states with governments that were not run by extremists…

      • This could and should have been resolved in the 90s sadly the extremists in the Israeli Govt have always prevented that for effectively biblical reasons that equally drive the otherwise anti-semetic Right in America to cover their asses even when leaders like Obama and Biden would prefer not to. Never have so few exercised so much influence it seems.

          • sorry mate, you simply cannot compare fatah and Hamas, they are profoundly different organisations..fatah was always closer to an organisation like the IRA, when the IRA put down their guns HMG came to terms with them..when Fatah put down their guns..Israel kept on taking the piss, pushing them and undermining them. Netanyahu had a very clear policy of weakening Fatah. If he had instead got behind fatah and removed the hard line Zionist settlers from the West Bank, them worked with Fatah to remove Hamas from Gaza it could have been a different place…instead he doubled down and supported the hard line Zionists ( who are quite frankly almost as bad as Hamas)..this strengthened the hold of Hamas on the population and has keep the bloodbath going and now it’s gone to some much shite that it’s going to keep being a bloodbath for even more generations. And if Israel gets poor luck then Iran will succeed in levering the new hatred in causing the fall of the house of hashim and Jordan will become an Iranian puppet state..at which point Israel will be in an existential fight for its life and before it’s buried it will probably nuc all its neighbours…Netanyahus geostrategy is close to failing and is a huge risk to the future of Israel.

            in reality the Israel government should have been utterly focused on the destruction of HAMAS by supporting their enemy and possibly a future peaceful government ( FATA)..but Netanyahu wanted them to keep fighting each other and ran a containment and control policy..while letting his own extremists run free.

        • Under the direction of Bill Clinton, at Camp David in 2000, Israel had proposed a Peace Deal that carried huge risks for the then Israeli PM Ehud Barack. This arrangement offered the Palestinian Govt the best deal they were likely to get – ever. Yasser Arafat point blank refused to sign it, he admitted that if he did he was a dead Man. That is the problem.

    • Basically a racist/marxist? anti Palestinian port by Trev.

      For Trev Palestinians cannot have ideology.They are just a reaction.

    • Trouble is Hamas came about because they were not living in peace much of that is due to the extremely unpleasant criminal who rules in Israel and his enabling henchmen on the extreme right who demand all of Palestine but ironically haven’t even got the guts to fight for it due to religious restrictions. How convenient for them to send others to their deaths in their place.

        • I like the way you use the term “Israelites”, good, as that’s confirmation from you that the ancient tribe, dating from around the iron age, have inhabited the area of the Levant, and the near East for such a length of time. The modern Jewish state can trace its lineage back to the various groups who made up the Israelites. Nice of you to confirm by your own comment, they have the absolute right to live there. Good lad.

      • Hamas started as an offshoot of the Islamic Brotherhood, as a reaction to Fatah corruption. Nothing to do with who was in control of Israel at the time. It maintains strong links to the Islamic Brotherhood to this day, training insurgents to fight against Egypt.

  2. Palestinians aren’t the problem Trev. It’s the thugs sponsored by the likes of Iran who terrorise them. There could be a Palestine Free State if the Arabs would accept the existence of Israel.

      • Were the Israelis in the 40s, When they freely murdered Brits in a land most of them had moved to from Europe? To live through a war and be killed by Israeli i colonists who they had saved in Europe must be truly sick for family members who lost them. In those years the Israelis were little to. no different in their willingness to kill innocents than Hamas is now.

        • It seems you are happy enough to forgive the Germans and Japanese for what happened in the 1940s. Just to give two minor exampoles, how many Brits died in the Blitz? How many died on the Burma Railway? I never hear you talking about that. But you hold Israel to a different standard, which apparently is a grudge forever. Why?

    • But desperate people with no access to arms might just try to live peacefully with their neighbours. Let’s be honest this is religious war that’s centuries old it about reclaiming land Islam originally conquered and lost again. Terrorists aren’t just born out of oppression, ideologies play a large part. In the case of Israel it will eventually cease to exist, history of Middle East Northern Africa and parts of Asia tell us that.

    • Could I ask if you condone the Hamas terrorists atrocities of October 2023 that instigated this current conflict?

      Or perhaps what your view is of Iran’s support of terrorism and their involvement in the stability of the area , or their avowed intention to destroy Israel.

      Or should I just hazard an ‘educated guess’ to save time.

      • Easy when you choose selective time lines isn’t it to argue moral superiority. No one is defending Hamas but the Israeli leadership in particular Netanyahu (a man who grew up in the US) are war criminals too, or in turn do you support their long form of insidious terrorism? Both are equally evil, yes if I have to take a side Hamas is more so if you want to split hairs, but history with endless oppression, revenge and reprisal have many inflection points not just one. Was brutal Romanian resistance to the Ottomans worse than what their Ottoman oppressors did to initiate it, what about Greek resistance when their Ottoman rulers intended to ethnically cleanse much of their land and re populate it with North Africans, which only Britain prevented by the way. Yes we need to be a little more open and judge in the round whatever our personal instincts, mainly through a sense of guilt or identify, understandably tend to twist our views on that bigger picture.

          • Open genocide. It’s been open govt policy for Israel to support Hamas. They want a cause to confiscate the land.

            They don’t want the left to pressure a two state solution.

            They aren’t even taking out Hamas or negotiating hostages back. This is causing outrage and protests in Israel.

            They’re simply clearing the land and killing indiscriminately.

          • Even by left wing standards that is an insane lie.

            Please point out where Israel has supported Hamas?

          • I’m not left wing.

            Google “Yonatana Orich”.

            Google a story called “The Israeli right is now openly saying it wants to keep Hamas in power”

            That story is from 2019. One of Netanyahu’s closest advisors has publicly said so.

            The Israeli far right are open about the fact that they supported Hamas in power, so they have a pretext to colonise the land. This isn’t even my opinion. This is mainstream Israeli politics. They’re very open about that fact.

            They don’t want a peaceful government in Gaza, because they don’t want the left to agree a two state solution.

            I’m quite sure I read quotes of Israeli Govt officials over the 2010s publicly saying the same thing.

            Early in this conflict, Israel were negotiating for Egypt to take refugees. This is because they want to clear the land for colonisation.

            Israeli Developers are advertising CGI housing developments on top of images of bombed out Gazan settlements.

            Within Israel itself, they’re very open about why they’re fighting this war. They don’t want to negotiate their hostages back (causing outrage and why there is a general strike in Israel). They want the land. Nothing less.

        • Oh don’t get me wrong , I’m not an advocate of Israels incursions into the West Bank/GAZA in general nor necessarily the indiscriminant nature of their response to Hamas in this particular instance-far from it.

          However I do support the fact they should be able respond in kind to Hamas’ terrorism in October, and unfortunately I would suggest this requires more force than perhpas many realise.

          In a siiliar way I think Netanyahu does have a lot to answer for his expolitation of the current situation and his attitude in recent history going back to when the PLO got ousted by Hamas.

          I just get a bit fed up of those folk who always want to support Palastine & by extension Hamas regardless of whatever has triggered any ‘event’.

          They are same people who always like to trot out any anti-west , anti US , anti UK sentiment whenever the opportunity arises.

          You can have empathy for people in a situation without having to be vociferously anti everything else.

        • Oh dear, oh dear, Trev, if that’s a real avatar, on two occasions using offensive stereotype comments, which are blatantly anti-sematic. Its a while since I’ve posted on here, but I’m back, and not able to accept your sad, silly offensive and racist comments. Reported. Just wonder how many accounts you have, as much of your posts and writing style do vary, just slightly, but easy to see.

      • So its the Israelis fault for having a music festival? Oh dear, the desperate efforts at sad justification for Hamas and its murdering rapists is very sad.

    • Agreed but the illegal take over of Palestinian lands in the West Bank is no different to claims of total control from Hamas. The extremists on both sides rule and have done for decades now.

    • “Desperate people do desperate things when repressed”

      Explain to me how do apply that to women apartheid in Muslim countries?

      And all the people repressed in Muslims countries. What you have to say of Baha’i a religion of of Persia? or Zoroastrians ? or Copts etc?

    • Maybe you can apply that to British India no?

      Do you know that it split into India and Pakistan?

      And that Pakistan split into Pakistan and Bangladesh?

      Maybe you should learn about all the countries that were formed in XX century.

  3. The UK provides 15% of the parts for each F-35. Does this suspension affect those parts? If so, there’s turbulence ahead.

      • Exactly and the idiots demanding we do when we have a far worse dictator threatening our freedoms really should get real and understand the true consequences of such an action. Would be a prospective death sentence for every person in our Country and well beyond. Whatever the situation in Palatine our defence comes first, however unpalatable that is.

        • The F35 is a different matter. That’s not our place.

          If we want to ban F35 exports then we develop our own aircraft.

          That’s one of the best arguments for sovereign defence capability.

          The same people who want us to stop us from following American policy want us to be dependent on them for defence.

          • Um nope. Germany banned Eurofighter parts sales to Saudi. We can absolutely stop selling parts, it would completely damage us as a reliable ally in the F35 program, but on the other side UK could ‘claim’ moral high ground. Tempest is not sovereign either we will rely on Japan and Italy for export support. Japan is currently having reservations against KSA joining the program.

          • You misunderstand what I’m saying.

            It’s not our place to stop F-35 exports is my point. It’s not a sovereign aircraft.

            My entire point is that if you want the UK to completely control who it exports arms to, then we should be developing these systems ourselves.

            Ironically, the people who complain about us following American policy are making a cade for us to spend MORE on defence, for sovereign capability.

          • Sorry I think we need to agree to disagree if the government thought loss of life in Gaza was a morally worthy cause they could put those life’s above the F35 program. US and others would eject us from the program, which would take years or counter sanction us. Of course, some Unions in the UK would also be critical of the decision due to job losses. Its would be a political decision with consequences.

            However even this decision the government has made for a limited embargo could be looked on by other allies as making the UK an unreliable partner. Sovereign capability becomes a huge cost if you can’t get export orders to drive economies of scale. Ultimately Sovereign capability has nothing to do with exports it’s political will and foreign policies that will dictate who buys.

          • The US kicked Turkey out of the F-35 program so there is precedent. It would take a lot for the US to do that with the UK but don’t think it wouldn’t, especially if Trump is elected President. Trump’s “affection” is for Queen Elizabeth not the UK. But more realistically, this action may affect a US Congress, especially if a Republican one, approving UK participation in US weapons programs.

          • The UK is not Turkey for starters. It’s an insulting comparison.

            The UK paid 10% of F-35 development costs. Turkey are a customer. They were not integral to its development and neither did they pay up for its development.

            Those threats are nothing more than intimidation.

            American politics are bought and paid for the the Israeli lobby (as are the Labour party).

            In fact, the actors recently causing social disorder in the UK are on the payroll of the Israeli government. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (Tommy Robinson) is financed by their government.

            The recent disorder was revenge against Muslim outrage in the West.

            At what point should Western National Interest be above Israeli interests? Us and the US have been nothing but a vehicle for Israeli/Zionist interests.

            The disruption to civilian shipping caused by our support of Israel costs many orders of magnitude more than suspending arms sales.

            Are you suggesting that the US will sabotage NATO for Israel? Of the West outside of the US, we have been the most partial to Israel (although that’s Germany now).

            US credibility is destroyed if they kick the UK out of the programme. It would shock the entire world and change the global balance of power.

            It de facto says that the West will destroy itself in favour of Israel.

    • The government has suspended 30 out of 350 export licenses for equipment they have seen the IDF using against civilian rather than military targets, the suspended licenses include military helicopters, drones and targeting systems.

    • No this is a very small statement, showing that they think the Israeli government is going to far..in the same way the US has done.

      • Of course Tehran will be winding back it’s arms exports to Syria, Hezbollah Hamas, etc. Look two wrongs don’t make it right. But this looks at like voter segment appeasement tbh otherwise there should be a blanket ban including F35 parts if it’s genuine attempt to ake the moral high ground.

        • not saying it’s the right thing to do, just the motivation, I think there is an element of voter segment appeasement, but I also think it’s a genuine expression of “not happy” with the way Isreal is conducting its campaign, the U.S. has done the same, with holding back certain munitions.

          There is a separate question around should the west even be considering the moral element when it comes to geopolitics and its own geostrategic position. As you point out our enemies do not consider the moral position, just the advantage of their position.After all the west merrily killed many 10,000 of civilians during the invasion of Iraq.

          In the end being democratic nations with free speech the west is particularly vulnerable to political warfare and for good or bad governments do have to consider that domestic element of any geopolitical and geostrategic decisions where as the dictators of Iran, Russia and China can do what the hell they like on the world stage without concern.

    • That’s a disingenuous argument.
      This act will have very little impact on Israel’s war machine and fighting ability. On the balance of probability it will save one or two lives at most.
      However, the stuff we buy from Israel are critical parts of some of our most useful equipment (for example our CAMM missile batteries for air defence) and if we were unable to buy or maintain those it would severely impact the UK’s ability as part of NATO, etc.
      If Britain and by extension NATO is weakened that increases the chance of a war started on the belief that, say, Putin can get away with things because we are too weak to react or respond.
      That has an admittedly small chance of causing the deaths of many, many people through nuclear war.
      The overall effect in terms of lives saved is a difficult debate ethically but in my opinion this ban is a bad idea because of the risk of isolating Israel and making more extreme actions by them more likely.

      • Don’t think anything is holding them back nothing we do for certain, I’m sure this is a calculated move, shows discontent esp in Britain but with little effect in reality, the Israelis need to sell abroad and many countries are far more anti Israel than us, they have more to lose than us longer term and they will know it.

    • What a childish comment to make about someone you don’t even know. The person regularly posts on here and has done so for a number of years. He is considered, knowledgeable and obviously has life experience before the internet came along.
      Not every comment on this page needs to refer to the suffering in that part of the world, which appalls any sane person.
      I have taken the time to read your other contributions on this page and they are fine so why undo your efforts by needlessly insulting someone because they fail to acknowledge everything you want them to.

    • Pathetic”
      Look in the mirror with that comment.

      You were of course out protesting on 7th October? Or when Ukraine was attacked? Or when Christians are lined up and beheaded on TV by ISIS?
      Or when the Sunni and Shia bomb each other for decades on end?
      Let me guess.
      Reading your comment history, you’ve already had a telling off by the site owner for your rudeness 8 months ago, many of your other pots have vanished, and it is a reading history of abuse, arguments, rudeness, and calling people “nipper”

      So “Trev” I invite you to basically go forth and multiply with comments to mr like that, or go to Palestine and protest there, I’m sure they’d love to have you.

    • Iran and the Houthis are using our Israel support as a proxy to disrupt civilian shipping. Supporting them is not in our interest.

      The systems they provide us are low complexity in comparison to what we can develop (not that it wouldn’t cost more).

        • We spend over £50 Billion on defence.

          These systems are of low enough complexity, that we don’t care enough to spend on R&D to develop ourselves.

          In general, anything we import isn’t anything that we couldn’t develop ourselves.

          • So we should should halt our Challenger 3 programme and our only air defence programme whilst we fund and develop our own solutions to replace Israeli Tech? You obviously don’t understand the consequences of what your advocating.

          • “These systems are of low enough complexity…” The acrobats (and ADA…) performed a magnificent routine. 😂

          • It’s not defeatism. It’s realism. Look at where you are not where you imagine you’d like to be. Right now we have a hollowed out military with massive, extremely dangerous capability gaps. Our intelligence agencies are predicting that the likelihood of conflict in the next few years is significantly increasing. We need to plug these gaps yesterday. We don’t have the time or the money to do develop sovereign capability. I’d rather we spent our time and insufficient resources building air defence systems with Israeli kit which will keep our guys alive rather than waste resources virtue signalling for vacuous Labour politicians.

          • It’s performative politics that’s all. The benefit of waving your willy to your supporters is not worth the potential cost to defence of the realm. HMG should not print cheques that it’s armed forces can’t cash.

          • Politics aside , Isreal is several years a head with some systems it would take us a long time to catchup and a big investment. Also Isreali kit is battle tested, living in a war zone ensures you make sure what you buy will work.

          • I don’t disagree.

            My point is that if we are serious about halting arms sales, then we will find a solution.

          • A civilian mentality suggests that if we sell very little to Israel and they sell a lot to us, a trade war is in our favor. The Treasury doesn’t care about military capability, and they won’t understand why it’s a problem that needs a solution. They may not have a ten-year rule any more, but they still have a ten-year mentality.

            Whatever solution you have in mind wouldn’t be funded. Changing any funded plan right now will lead to postponements, cancellations and cost savings.

          • Don’t worry we can toss any bit of kit to the Saudis and they’ll test it out against the Yemenis as they have been doing already, and as a plus we would recover some capabilities lost from outsourcing. What we shouldn’t fall for is for a country that wouldn’t even exist without our part to counter threaten us for more than reasonable suspensions.

        • I saw the same list on the hellsite…as you say it was extensive.
          Some is provided by UK based Elbit so not direct supplied …
          Here is some of it…

          Sky Sabre AD control system
          SMASH smart shooter anti drone sights for SA
          Parts for Hermes and watchkeeper
          Spike
          UK Pilot training
          Trophy active defence system for CH3
          Fwd Air Controller sighting and control Systems
          Kevlar for T26 protection
          XACT NVGs
          RN EW systems
          Ground Based radar
          Parts of Morpheus
          81mm Mortar and 105 gun simulators
          Micro drones.

          If the Israel Govt retaliates…?

          • There is no easy answer here, as is anyone indicating we should keep arming isreal when they are mass killing civilians like no other regime has outside maybe Russia in many decades. We have a morale duty to not be supporting such acts.

            I however suspect these contracts have been selected carefully, to be seen to be doing something without actually doing anything. They were probably contracts coming to an end or of limited value to isreal such as long term deliveries that can be switched on again before delivery dates.

          • So in reality it’s pointless and just to appease part of Labour’s voter base rather than a tangible action to punish Isreal. Which would suggest the morality if is also questionable, give as you suspect it will have no impact.

          • Its politics, every thing that is done is to appease either the voters or donors. That’s just democracy for you.

            For sure it’s morally questionable approach, but at least something is atleast better than nothing which was the previous approach.

          • Personally, I don’t think the Conservatives were any different it wasn’t they did nothing. They made the decision to maintain exports based on their voting base also. Ultimately the results are the same, people will continue to die, but a section of the UK public and political class will have slightly warm a fuzzy feeling they are sticking it to Isreal (possibly the jews in general)and what little political influence we have over Isreal has just dropped a few % points.

          • Yeah I don’t think labour is any better or worse than then the conservates on this point. Wasn’t comparing to previous goverment more previous stance.

          • Lammy is playing to the crowd here he probably (almost certainly) has no idea what we get from Isreal! This next 5 yrs is going to be a disaster for defence and foreign policy.

    • That’s an unfair comment and extrapolating out meaning that is not there..Danielle did not say “I don’t care about the Palestinians” he made a statement about important equipment imports for our armed forces.

    • I certainly hope they’d try, though I reckon they won’t dare try and make such an important ‘ally’ break off from supporting them. This response is the bare minimum we could’ve done.

  4. What’s the list of those things now restricted, I find it tough to find any details when doing a search. All one gets is that nearly all of it is tied into the F-35 production which is as good as impossible to restrict for obvious reasons. Anyone have a decent list? Personally I don’t consider LandRovers and the like as weapons some activists clearly do.

  5. Politics. So if the Israeli government responds in kind, can we look forward to restrictions on Israeli technologies being used by the UK government? Ajax? Challenger?

    • Hm… EW for RN, composite armor for type 26, Trophy and Iron fist, SMASH X4, air defense system, helmet gen. 4-5, new display for F-35 (Elbit!) etc. etc… 

  6. Did we place armed sanctions on Jordan in 1948 when they invaded the West Bank and evicted Jews from the Jewish Quarter of the Old City where they had lived for hundreds of years? Then they bombarded the Jews trapped in West Jerusalem and along with the local Arabs cut off supplies to starve the remaining Jews. Drive up the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and you will see the wrecks of supply column trucks ambushed and drivers slaughtered by local Arab villagers.

  7. It is my understanding that we send a very small amount of kit to Israel, and this would seem to me more about two tier Kier making an effort at pacifying his own “Pro-Palestinian” supporters, Labour members and a number of Labour MPS from certain ethnic and religious backgrounds and ideology. Lets hope Israel see this for what it is, sad party politics, and not respond in kind, as we import way more tech and kit from them as we export.

    • Israel is used to what politicians have to do to placate the masses. During the Yom Kippur War (1973) Jordan declared war on Israel. It sent troops to the Syrian front. However if you look more closely, you won’t find accounts of pitched battles between Israelis and Jordanians. That’s because King Hussein had to declare war and send troops to appease the masses, and Israel understood. Hussein had the Jordanian’s troop movements back-channelled to Israel so that the two groups of soldiers wouldn’t accidentally bump into each other.

      Export licences are pretty small beer in comparison.

    • I would logically say if they were genuinely concerned beyond a section of their vote base they would blanket ban to have a bigger impact. If Isreal had ground aircraft like F35 due to arms embargo then it would force them to negotiate as this would massively impact their ability to go on the front foot and actively disrupt proxies like Hezbollah. I post this from a logical.perspective not a political view.

  8. Oh dear, the anti-sematic troll raises its ugly head from the thin veneer of weak respectability. If you don’t give a damn, why respond, post and make weak justifications for your sad nonsense.

    • Oh dear you do get agitated for someone who says he doesn’t care. And I read many books thanks, maybe try one yourself my little anti-Semite.

  9. “indigenous people of Palestine”
    And they would be who exactly and how far back in time do you want to take it?

    Why am I even asking. Your ass is grass when the Site Admin gets his mower out in a few hours.
    Ta Ta cupcake.

    Put your keffiyeh on, wave your plastic flag and scream aloud about injustice in a region you probably have never been to or worked in.
    I live and work in the Middle East.
    Nobody gives a toss about Palestinians here.
    Yes, they do the token ” oh yes its terrible have some hand me down clothes and some money for flour” bit but they know from personal experience that they are a bunch if ungrateful ingrates who just cause trouble and strife wherever they go.
    Oh, and where I am we have a Synagogue, Hindi temples, 2 x Cathedrals, Buddhist temples…and more importantly no daily marches or protests supporting Palestine or Gaza.

  10. It’s time we got a grip. The grey-zone war is turning kinetic. The Western Alliance is up against China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and proxies. Israel is on our side. Hamas, Houthis, Hizbollah, etc, are on the other side.

    Propaganda is pumped into our media all the time to distract from that one truth. 300,000 dead in Yemen. 900,000 dead in Syria. The Economist is projecting up to eight million deaths in the Sudan over the next three years. Yet the propaganda keep our eyes firmly on Israel and the Labour government has fallen for it. While they get all moral high ground, Ukraine has been invaded, the enemy is blockading the Red Sea and our sailors go to fight.

    • Well said. This is just the latest example of other people blaming the west for there problems. A few years ago it was slavery, despite there being far more slaves today in various forms than in human existence. Today it’s blame the west for a war the west never instigated whilst forgetting the slaughter of millions by there own people and the continued slaughter in various regions. The ironic thing is most of the people jumping on the bandwagon and blaming the west for everything would probably be stoned to death or banged up to rot in some shitpit if they took there way of life to the places they allegedly support.

      • Yes, I absolutely agree the numbers are ridiculously high and quite how Hamas alliwed this to happen is beyond comprehension. Hamas took action on Isreal without appropriately preparing the civilian population for the inevitable war whilst building tunnels and stock poling for its own forces did nothing to try to protect the population that put it in power. A government’s first priority is to.protect it’s people Hamas has failed on spectacular scale. Imagine if we attacked a country without our own air defences to repell the retaliation or the ability to prevent a ground offensive, the UK.public would be holding our government to account. As you say it really puts Hamas’s complete incompetence as the governing body in Gaza in perspective.

        • Hamas are a terrorist organization, no one has ever disputed that. but Israel, being the supposed “only democracy” in the Middle East went on a blind vendetta against Hamas killing everyone in its wake…hostages included as Netanyahu’s perpetual state of conflict guarantees that he won’t go to trial in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile 40 000 + civilians are dead most of them women and children

          • Did you, the British, not do the same against Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich, etc. Did you not partake in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Were they war crimes? We’re they acts of Genocide, a term one im.beci1e on here loosely throws around? Of course not. They were acts of war, not Genocide.

            To quote your great Air Marshall Arthur Harris:
            “The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody else and nobody was going to bomb them.”
            “They sowed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”

            On October 7th 2023, the Gazans, the most intrical part of the Hamas war machine, sowed the wind. Now they are casualties of a war they started, just as Berliners were in 1945.

            For the war to stop only two very simple things need to happen. The Gazans have to release the hostages alive and surrender. End of war and end of casualties.

          • I’m not British
            second, world war 2 pitted nations of equal technologies on a vast territory, not one extremely powerful country vs. an enclave of 10 sq KM that is 99.9% civilians and 0.1% terrorists..you can’t compare both, you simply can’t..

          • You simply can. You absolutely can.

            Hamas has overwhelming support amongst the Gazans who largely and enthusiastically celebrated the brutal, barbaric, animalistic acts of October 7th. Just because the Gazans are blinded by hate and a collective stupidity does not excuse them from the consequences of their savage and bestial actions. It certainly does not negate Isreal’s right to self defence. If you believe it does, the only country in the world that is expected to, then I really have to believe your motives for doing so are suspect.

            BTW Your 0.1% terrorist statement is absolute nonsense. A poll taken in Gaza after October 7th showed that 57% of Gazans supported the atrocities of October 7th (1% margin of error). Gaza and the Gazans are a de facto terrorist state.

            FACT CHECK
            Hamas armed militants and their allies, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in Gaza number approximately 50,000. That equated to 2.5% of the population. For comparison the UK armed forces represent only 0.22% of it’s population. IDF + called up reservists are approx 5%. That’s fighting in Gaza and defending it’s borders with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and the West Bank. Normally it is only 1.7%.

          • Yes i’m sure the 12 000 + children are blinded by hate..please, this is a people that has been oppressed for the last century because France and the UK decided to carve up the region as they see fit… again i’m not British, so it’s not my government but you are definitely on the wrong side of history as it is being proven day after day. Israel is committing genocide on innocent people trying to kill the few bad apples. Israel can defend itself, but being the “superpower” it claims to be, it can defend itself following the international human rights conventions (again it claims that it’s a democracy”). it doesn’t help your case when you say “They did it first, so why shouldn’t Israel do it too”…it’s whataboutism at best. If Israel thinks it is a stable and human loving democracy, then it needs to hold itself up to higher standards…what we’re seeing is just pitiful, no matter how much your xenophobic and islamophobic tendencies flare up.

          • Again you are factually incorrect on all points.
            1. Isreal is not a so called democracy. It is an actual democracy and a non homophobic and non misogynistic society, The opposite of Gaza.

            2. Britain and France did not carve up the region. It was The League of Nations, the predecessor of The United Nations, after WW1 and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. In 1947 the UN divided the old British Mandate of Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs. Following this the Palestinian Arabs and surrounding Arab states invaded Jewish land with the object of complete eradication of the Jews. They lost and the Arabs were mostly expelled, not eradicated.

            3. The Jews have been oppressed for several millennia. That’s just in their own homeland. British Mandste, Ottoman, Seljuk, Arab (incl. Palestinian Arabs), Roman, Assyrian, Babylonia, Persian and Egyptian oppression.

            4. “The wrong side of history.” What a nonsensical term used by nonsensical people against other people who disagree with them. Pure meaningless wokeism.

            5. People dying as a consequence of a war caused by their own people is not Genocide. The people of Britain and the USA did not commit Genocide by killing civilians in Germany, Japan, Iraq or Afghanistan. These were casualties of war. People dying in Gaza are dying as a consequence of a war started by themselves; not a systematic extermination of an ethnic or racial group. Let’s stick to facts and not ill-informed emotions. For the war to cease they just have to surrender and release the hostages.

            6.Isreal is not a superpower and has never claimed to be. More atrocious nonsense.

            7. First you say Isreal has a right to defend itself then you say it shouldn’t be allowed to. Why just Isreal I wonder? Remember I mentioned suspect motives. You definitely confirm my suspicion.

            8. Where is my Islamaphobia? If Isreal unilaterally did what the Gazans did on Oct7th to a neighbouring Arab Muslim state, I would absolutely support that country’s right to defend itself and prevent Isreal from repeating such an atrocity. Absolutely totally, unreservedly!

            9. Isreal does not persecute, imprison, torture or murder LGBTQ people or oppress women simply because they are what they are. In Gaza they do. Isreal is a western democracy with western liberal societal standards. It’s neighbours are not.

          • Nope Israel isn’t committing genocide.
            The definition of genocide isn’t being met and the actions taken are not genocidal in their outcome.

            You did quite well on the Hamas shrill bingo card .
            I got 5 crossed out.

          • As for your Labour government, they all wholeheartedly supported making the openly antisemitic racist Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister of your country.

            In May 2019, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) launched an inquiry into whether Labour had “unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people because they are Jewish”. In October 2020, the EHRC published its report, determining that the party was “responsible for unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination”. The EHRC found 23 instances of political interference and concluded that Labour breached the Equality Act.

            Effectively, the Labour Party was declared by the EHRC to be a racist antisemitic institution and the first and only time a mainstream party had been declared as such by an official investigation.

            I don’t think much has changed in 4 years.

          • Hamas runs Gaza and is therefore accountable for what goes on in Gaza. Irrespective of any designation we give them. There seems to be an insatiable appetite to let them off the hook for anything that has happened, what because we labelled them as terrorists, shouldn’t it be the opposite. Ultimately they didn’t need to attack Isreal and take hostages and had they not there would not be 40000 casualties. Which incidentally is a Hamas numbers which we are saying are credible, so can we allow them to be credible in some aspects but let them off when it comes to dragging their citizens to war without preparing them. Hamas know their enemy they knew the likely response but choose to do it anyway. It’s like us attacking Russia and then wondering why nukes are falling on us, we know Putins a nutter and Russia has a escalated to de-escalate policy and therefore the likely outcome.

      • err…no.
        Best estimates from reliable and independent sources put civilian deaths in Gaza at 10-15k.
        Thats about 10k less than the Blitz.
        The Figures bandied about by Hamas of 40K+ are pure fantasy.
        That figure includes around 15-20K Hamas fighters that, are called civilians.

          • That would be the UN who use…
            Wait for it….

            Wait for it…

            It will be worth it….

            HAMAS Controlled Gaza Authority figures.
            The figures that have been widely ridiculed for

            1. Double counting of casualties.
            2. Inventing names of casualties.
            3. Counting Hamas fighters as civilians if and when they do get included.
          • i see you’re coping with official figures recognized by your own government…but then again i’m guessing you are in Gaza so you probably know best lool

  11. I think we’re going to have trouble with this new government. The last lot were incompetent low energy, lazy clowns. This new lot seem to be reality-denying cultists. They will drive the car off the cliff and be glad to do so if their utopianism instructs them to ignore reality and do so.

  12. Apart from the fact that my wife is Jewish, I have from a very early age and will always be, on the side of Israel. The Holocaust was for me the worst crime committed against one group, the Jewish people, in known history, not just because of the numbers of men, women and children that were tortured and killed by the Nazis, but because of the clinical, industrial scale by which it was perpetrated by a so called civilised culture. So, after the barbaric attack by Hamas, huge numbers, including many Muslims were horrified and sympathised with Israel and the Jewish people. Netenyahu has however, destroyed all of that goodwill by his over the top responses. He now has the support of LESS than 20% of the population of Israel and his crude reactions have made it easy for the terrorists of Hamas to gain undeserved but to be honest, understandable sympathy from those who are horrified at the sight of dead and dying, starving and diseased little children!
    My line in the sand is ALWAYS on the Israeli side and I would never support sanctions against them BUT..!!

  13. We make F35 fuselage parts that are shipped to Lockheed for their production line. The other aircraft spares go into a pool. We do not supply fuselages to Israel whose plane were built several years ago.

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