Frequently Asked Questions
Click on each question for an answer.
Why aren't you calling for an arms embargo on Hizbollah and Hamas?
The UK does not supply weapons to Hizbollah or Hamas.
Our aim is to apply international pressure to ensure that Israeli human rights violations and breaches of international law are brought to an end. Israel is in violation of over 60 UN resolutions, while its Occupation policies violate several articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a range of international human rights and humanitarian laws. Since 2000, over 4,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Occupied Territories.
It is time for the UK government to signal its unwillingness to accept these on-going and escalating war crimes, as well as ensuring that UK companies do not profit from the humanitarian crisis that the Palestinians and others are currently experiencing.
In today's globalised arms industry, most major weapons systems are assembled from components sourced from several different countries. For instance, the Apache attack helicopters and its armaments, supplied to Israel by the United States, contain components from the UK, Norway and probably other European countries, as well as the USA.
The internationalism of such weapons doesn't absolve the suppliers of parts from responsibility – a missile or an attack helicopter wouldn't work without each part contained within it. The UK's own export control regime recognises this fact: applying the same criteria to the export of components as to complete weapons. In practice, however, laxer standards are applied to the export of components. While the government usually shies away from selling UK-made guns and bombs to Israel, they knowingly license the export of their key components.
For instance, the head-up displays that allow Israeli F-16 pilots to fly are manufactured in the UK. Despite Israel’s use of F-16 jets to attack civilians in the West Bank just four months previously, the Government insisted on permitting their export in 2002 because, as then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw MP told Parliament, "the supply of HUDs is part of a long-standing collaboration in this US programme. Any interruption to the supply of these components would have serious implications for the UK's defence relations with the United States."
Doesn't Israel have a right to defend itself?
Every country in the world has a right to defend itself within the bounds of international law and human rights conventions. However, Israel has failed to respect these boundaries for many decades. For instance, in its Occupation of Palestinian land over 40 years it has engaged in: excessive and disproportionate force, house demolitions, targeted assassinations, detention of minors, detention without trial, attacks on water supplies, violation of the right to food and attacks on medical personnel and equipment.
It is difficult to decipher these actions in terms of security, when they so clearly enrage popular sentiment and turn the Palestinians to ever more desperate measures which in turn undermine Israeli security. Israel has the largest army in the Middle East – the fourth largest in the world. No other regional power can possibly threaten its existence. Yet since its creation, Israel has invaded and occupied some or all of every one of its neighbouring countries.
Those concerned about the security of Israel should be centrally concerned with the situation of the Palestinians, because it is only by ensuring justice for the Palestinians, that Israel can ensure it’s long-term security. Continuing to supply Israel with weapons to facilitate its aggression, in no way helps Israel’s long-term security needs.
If we didn't supply Israel, surely someone else would?
It is no defence in any form of law to claim that someone else would have committed a crime if you hadn’t. It is also an argument for providing any country with arms, no matter how bad their human rights record.
Rather than racing other countries to the bottom in terms of human rights, the UK should be taking a lead in raising the floor upwards. Only by strengthening international law will we ensure the world becomes a safer and more equitable place to live in, and the UK Government can play a vital role in that by taking its own arms export criteria seriously.
What effect would an embargo really have? Isn't it just a 'hollow gesture'?
The UK is one of Israel’s closest political friends and economic allies. A signal such as an arms embargo would send a very strong message to Israel to rein in its behaviour and abide by international law.
Moreover, it means that UK arms companies are not profiting from the misery of the Palestinians, and that the arms which the UK buys have not been tested on the Palestinians living under Occupation. In other words that the UK is not facilitating or benefiting from Israel’s violations of international law.
