British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s recent decision to suspend the export of some weapons to Israel was disappointing but not surprising.
Starmer, the leader of the left-of-center Labor Party, is far more critical of Israel than his right-wing Conservative predecessor, Rishi Sunak, who was generally supportive of Israel’s just military campaign to eradicate Hamas and prevent it from ever ruling the Gaza Strip again.
Prior to defeating Sunak in the general election recently, Starmer called for an immediate ceasefire to end the Israel-Hamas war, a step the Conservatives refrained from taking because they understood that a long-range truce will enable Hamas to survive.
Once in office, Starmer parted ways with Sunak in two other major respects.
In a rebuke to Israel, he dropped Sunak’s objection to the International Criminal Court’s pursuit of an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
And in the face of compelling Israeli accusations that a dozen employees of UNRWA had participated in Hamas’ murderous invasion of Israel on October 7, he resumed funding to that United Nations agency that assists Palestinian refugees in the Middle East.
Now, in yet another pivot away from Israel, Starmer instructed Foreign Secretary David Lammy to announce the suspension of 30 out of 350 arms export licences to Israel. This order will affect the sale of components for fighter jets, helicopters and drones.
Speaking in the House of Commons just hours after the funerals of six Israeli hostages murdered by Hamas in a tunnel beneath Rafah, Lammy justified the suspension on the grounds that Israel might use these weapons in breach of international humanitarian law. He said that he and his predecessor, David Cameron, had repeatedly raised concerns about Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, and that Israel had not addressed them “satisfactorily.”
Lammy and Starmer may have been influenced by a letter 600 British lawyers and retired judges sent to Sunak in April claiming that arms sales to Israel violated international law. Around the same time, two Palestinian human rights organizations, Al-Haq and the Global Legal Action Network, filed a motion in court demanding the stoppage of arms exports to Israel.
Lammy insisted that the suspension was neither a “blanket ban” nor an “embargo,” and that it would not have a material bearing on Israel’s security. This is true. Britain’s arms trade with Israel is fairly minor. Sales in 2022 were $55 million, but dropped to $24 million in 2023. By comparison, Israel receives $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid annually.
And the suspension excludes spare parts for the F-35 fighter jet, Israel’s most advanced aircraft, as Sam Perlo-Freeman, the research coordinator of Campaign Against Arms Trade, correctly points out.
This means that Israel will not be seriously affected by the British government’s decision. Nevertheless, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant was “deeply disheartened” by it.
Netanyahu did not mind words either. On September 3, he condemned the British move. “This shameful decision will not change Israel’s determination to defeat Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that savagely murdered 1,200 people on October 7, including 14 British citizens,” he wrote on X. “Instead of standing with Israel, a fellow democracy defending itself against barbarism, Britain’s misguided decision will only embolden Hamas.”
Britain’s chief rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, alluded to this in a forceful statement on X, writing that Starmer made his decision at a time when Israel is fighting an existential war for its very survival, a war forced upon it by Hamas.
Starmer’s policy shift leaves much to be desired. His predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, who led the Labor Party from 2015 to 2020, was essentially anti-Israel and tolerated expressions of antisemitism within its ranks. Starmer ejected him from the party and rehabilitated it, raising expectations that he would relate to Israel in a more positive fashion.
Starmer has indeed distanced himself from the Corbyn era, but several of his decisions regarding Israel, particularly the latest one, have fallen short of the mark.