The weapons sale suspension was neither just nor justified. It’s high time to repair our relationship with an ally critical to our security – and potentially even more vital in missile defence
Last week, Germany announced that it will resume arms exports to Israel, which it suspended in August. I have written to the Prime Minister asking him to do likewise.
Many of us rightly opposed the government’s decision in September 2024 to suspend some arms export licences to Israel. Having visited both Israel and Gaza during the conflict, I never shared the view of former Foreign Secretary David Lammy that there existed a clear risk that UK arms might be used by Israel “to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law”.
Nor did the British senior former military officers who joined an ELNET delegation in the very month the suspension was announced. As one of their number, General Sir John McColl, the former deputy supreme allied commander of Nato, later wrote, the IDF procedures designed to protect civilian life were “at least as rigorous as those applied in the UK armed forces”.
To read ELNET-UK CEO, Rt. Hon. Joan Ryan’s Op-ed: