A Profound Impact

Ricky D. Hale writes:

It turns out that when the UK suspended 8% of arms licences to Israel and left the other 92% in place, the decision was nothing to do with legality or respect for human rights. Court documents have revealed the government’s reason for leaving arms licences in place is that it didn’t want to upset the US. Yes, really.

Sir Keir Starmer, the man who loves to tell every critic of Israel they’re racist, is participating in the ultimate racism - genocide - to give the US confidence in his support for NATO. Starmer’s commitment to NATO is so ironclad, there is no crime he won’t commit for it.

Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq and the UK-based Global Legal Action Network have launched court action to force the government to halt arms shipments to Israel. Unsurprisingly, Israel considers Al Haq to be a terrorist organisation so it will be interesting to see if the High Court rules in its favour. Will that make the High Court Hamas?

Frustratingly, the case won’t be heard until January by which time many more civilians will have been killed by our weapons. You might be forgiven for thinking there is no chance of victory, but you would be mistaken. The High Court has previously ordered the government to stop arming Saudi Arabia when it was committing genocide in Yemen so anything is possible. It might boil down to the political sympathies of the judges because the government has no credible legal argument.

The admissions from the government in its initial submissions have truly defied belief. There is not even the pretence it is trying to comply with international humanitarian law. It really seems to be going with the “international law doesn’t apply to Israel” approach.

Laughably, the government insisted Israel has given a commitment to respecting human rights, but as lawyer Phillippa Kaufmann KC pointed out, you don’t take Israel at its word, you look at its actions. The government has already conceded Israel is not respecting human rights which is why 8% of arms licences were suspended.

Nowhere in international law does it say that when a country is using your weapons to commit war crimes that you should cut their arms supply by only 8%. It’s breathtaking that this needs to be typed out.

The government accepted there is a clear risk that F-35 parts “might be used to violate international humanitarian law”. The F-35 is described by manufacturer Lockheed Martin as “the most lethal fighter jet in the world”, yet we’re still sending these to Israel. On top of this, we’re launching surveillance flights from our base in Cyprus to tell these jets where to strike.

F-35s are used to drop the 2,000lb bombs that keep levelling apartment buildings, but our government thinks it would be too inconvenient to put a stop to this.

One of the key arguments in the government’s documents is that ceasing arms sales to Israel would have a “profound impact” on international peace and security, like the war machine has ever been interested in peace and security! A genocide is taking place. If peace and security were your goals, stopping the genocide would be your move, not prolonging it.

This is gonna come as a great shock to Mr Human Rights Lawyer, but the only consideration here is: Is Israel violating international law? His government has already conceded the answer to that question is yes, which is why it suspended 8% of arms licences. Well, that same reasoning applies to the other 92%.

The court was told it is not possible to suspend the remaining arms licences without undermining the F-35 programme which involves 20 countries. Again, this is not a legal argument. The correct stance would be to tell those 20 countries to respect international law by kicking Israel out of the programme. If they refuse, you pull the plug on the basis they’re jeopardising international peace and security! You don’t commit mass murder to “reassure” your friends.

The government pointed out that suspending the remaining arms licences to Israel would cost the arms industry billions. Seventy-nine companies in the UK hold licences to manufacture F-35 parts and suspension of those licences would mean a loss of blood money so they must continue. For contrast, Israel is not allowing life saving equipment donated by the Fire Brigades Union into Gaza. The humanitarian aid can be stopped but the weapons can’t.

It defies belief that our only course of action is to seek a court order to force the UK government to do the right thing. Lammy and Starmer should be prosecuted for their atrocities. Imagine police were as eager to act against war criminals as they are against someone who posts a Palestinian flag on social media.

A former human rights monitor was just arrested in Jersey because her social media posts count as “terrorism”, but I’m guessing her body count is lower than Starmer’s and Lammy’s. I’m guessing it’s actually zero and her intention is probably to end the violence which is why she must be silenced.

This is probably going to upset liberals, but I fully expect Starmer to partner with Trump to censor social media and criminalise criticism of Israel. At this point, authoritarianism is probably the only way he can avoid war crimes charges. If the High Court doesn’t put a stop to this lunatic now, even darker days lie ahead.