Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon stated that British dual nationals are permitted to serve in recognised foreign military forces like the Israel Defence Force, as the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 does not apply to the situation in Gaza.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office), stated:
“The UK recognises the right of British nationals with more than one nationality to serve in the legitimately recognised armed forces of their additional nationalities. This includes the Israel Defence Force.
With respect to the current conflict in Gaza, Section 4 of the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 makes it an offence for a British subject to enlist in the military of a foreign state at war with another foreign state with which the UK is at peace. That prohibition does not extend, however, to enlistment in a foreign government’s forces which are engaged in a civil war or combating terrorism or internal uprisings. The Occupied Palestinian Territories are not currently recognised as a state by the UK. The 1870 Act therefore does not apply in this instance.”
I don’t think the UK should intervene between Iran and Israel. Israel has gone from to defender to aggressor they have broken international law and even after the west condemned some attacks they still continue with their all out tactics no matter how many civilians are killed. The UK are on the righteous side in Ukraine but I don’t think this is the case with Israel. If the west intervene in this way Israel thinks it has the wests approval. All arms trade with Israel should be suspended until Israel pulls back to a defensive stance then let the aid… Read more »
truth
My take with Iran is, its a very aggressive colonolial empirical type state . If we get the map out we can see it has control or majority control of Iraq , Syria ,Lebanon , Yemen and Gaza . Its secret service are also aggressive abroad and definitely active in uk . So when Hezbollah , Gaza or Syrian militia fire missiles into Israel like they have been doing before the Iran embassy in Syria incident , its all done by the order of Iran and its republican guard. So puts Israel in a difficult situation . Granted bombing the… Read more »
Iran leadership isn’t even a friend to its own people.
Was Isreal the aggressor reference Iran. Isreal has never threatened to wipe Iran from the map. So any act to prevent such an action could be said to be legitimate which includes targeting build up of weapons and command and control structures within Iran sphere of influence. Also Isreal never claim responsibility for the attack that Iran responded to, if Iran has evidence it should have gone to the UN with evidence and called for an international team to investigate the incident. But probably that team would have uncovered evidence of other unsavoury activities that Iran was doing at the… Read more »
Israel has gone from to defender to aggressor That’s not how it works. Hamas launched an assault on Israel, the Israelis are retaliating. Unless Hamas surrenders and Israel doesn’t stop, they don’t get to claim Israel is the one attacking them. As for the international law argument, terrorism is against international law. Cutting the heads off of innocent civilians is against international law. Using civilians as human shields is against international law (I think, I need to double check that one). There is no “righteous” side when it comes to this kind of war. This isn’t a conflict between two… Read more »
Spoken like a true civvy nice and safe in your nice warm cosy home. Israel has crossed a line it doesn’t matter if Hamas was using a hospital or civilians as shields you don’t use indiscriminate bombing and then try and blame Hamas. I’ve seen friends killed because leaders are trying to prove a point. It takes a bigger person to say ok we’ve proved our point then they can take the moral high ground. If we get drawn into a conflict I hope to see you sign up and I’ll see you on the front line.
I’m sorry for your loss, but it’s a tad hypocritical to demand Israel stops when under the same circumstances we did the same. During the Second World War, we burnt large parts of Germany to the ground, civilians and all, to defeat the Nazis and the the threat to our civilisation they represented. While we might express regret that such actions were taken, at no point does anyone look back and say “We should’ve stopped when we pushed them back to Germany and given them the chance to surrender”. You don’t leave an existential threat to your people sat on… Read more »
During WW2 Britain avoided bombing civilians until Germany started the Blitz and we responded in kind, I don’t agree with those tactics but that was a different time. Nowadays a soldiers main priority is to protect civilians at all costs it’s easy blowing up a building instead of clearing it British soldiers are experts in urban warfare we train to negate the loss of civilian lives. You need to weigh up the loss of civilians to the loss of combatants if civilian loss out weights of the combatants loss then that is crossing a line and you have to take… Read more »
It was a different time for us; we’ve had nearly 8 decades without a major threat to the British Isles, and aside from terror attacks we’ve had over 3 decades without even an acknowledged enemy to focus our defence against. Even when we were at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the country itself was fundamentally at peace. Morality flourishes when survival isn’t on the table. The Israelis haven’t had that luxury. They founded a country in the aftermath of a world war that Jewish people suffered pretty badly in, only to spend most of the next century being told to… Read more »
You can ask that question over and over no one knows till it happens it only takes one to show good faith. If I was on the ground and Hamas attack a safe zone we would respond. But why would Hamas attack a Palestinian safe zone it would be counter productive since in their mind they are fighting for the freedom of Palestine. I don’t think we will ever see eye to eye because we have got different perspectives of war.
Have 29 comments been deleted? What happened?
The British people serving are Jews by religion, if they step into Israel they get called up for national service if they are settled there ,I’m