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arms trade
'Admission of Guilt': UK Suspends Some Arms Export Licenses to Israel Over Gaza
"Finally—but this is both too little and too late," said the International Center of Justice for Palestinians.
Sep 02, 2024
As governments enabling Israel's devastating war on the Gaza Strip face growing global demands to impose arms embargoes, a U.K. minister on Monday announced the suspension of approximately 30 of 350 weapons export licenses.
"This is not a blanket ban. This is not an arms embargo," stressed U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy, part of Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour Party, which took control of the government after voters ended 14 years of Conservative rule in July.
While describing himself as a "friend of Israel" and "a liberal, progressive Zionist," Lammy said that "it is this government's legal duty to review export licenses" and "the assessment I have received leaves me unable to conclude anything other than that for certain U.K. arms exports to Israel, there does exist a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law."
The targeted licenses are for "equipment that we assess is for use in the current conflict in Gaza, such as important components which go into military aircraft, including fighter aircraft, helicopters, and drones, as well as items which facilitate ground targeting," Lammy told the U.K. Parliament. The remaining exports "will continue" and "the government will keep our position under review."
According to the Financial Times:
The move will not affect components for the multinational F-35 joint striker fighter program, except regarding parts sent directly to Israel.
U.K. officials determined that suspending critical components within a global pool of spare parts could harm the maintenance and operations of F-35s in other nations.
"When Israel is carrying out a genocidal assault in Gaza, we shouldn't just ban a small fraction of arms licenses to Israel,"
said Zarah Sultana, a Labour Party member who represents Coventry South in Parliament. "This ban still allows the U.K. to sell parts for F-35 fighter jets, known as 'the most lethal' in the world. The government needs to ban ALL arms sales."
Stop the War Coalition
called the suspension "an admission of guilt" and similarly stressed that "we need a full, comprehensive ban on arms sales to apartheid Israel—not this half-hearted approach."
Lammy's announcement came as the Danish news outlet
Information and NGO Danwatch connected Israel's use of an F-35 stealth fighter to a July 13 attack on an Israeli-designated "safe zone" in southern Gaza, which killed scores of Palestinians and injured hundreds more.
In a statement responding to both developments, Sam Perlo-Freeman, research coordinator for the Campaign Against Arms Trade,
said:
The government's statement today that it is suspending 30 arms export licenses to Israel is a belated, but welcome move, finally acting upon the overwhelming evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. But exempting parts for Israel's F-35 is utterly outrageous and unjustifiable.
These are by far the U.K.'s most significant arms supplies to the Israeli military, and just today we have confirmation that they have been used in one of the most egregious attacks in recent months. The government has admitted that there is a 'clear risk' that Israel is using fighter aircraft among other weapons to violate international humanitarian law. How can this 'clear risk' not apply to the F-35s? The only right and legal course of action is to end the supply of F-35 parts to Israel, along with the rest of U.K. arms sales.
Although the suspension is not as bold as critics of Israel's bombardment have called for, it was still seen as another positive step under Starmer, whose government has also recently resumed funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and dropped a challenge to the International Criminal Court prosecutor's request for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as Hamas leaders.
While Gallant said he was "deeply disheartened" by the U.K.'s latest move, Dearbhla Minogue, senior lawyer for the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), declared that "this momentous decision vindicates everything Palestinians have been saying for months."
GLAN and Al-Haq on Saturday had threatened the U.K. government with new legal action if it failed to engage the suspension mechanism following revelations in The Guardian and The Telegraph regarding communications between Attorney General Richard Hermer and the Foreign Office about weapons sales to Israel.
"The U.K. government was backed into a corner," Minogue said Monday. "Our most recent letter showed that a suspension was the only right and legal thing to do. This is a truly historic victory for Al-Haq and for Palestinians. The exhaustive evidence we filed in mid-August showed that there was only one legally sound decision available to the government—that it is against the law to supply Israel with weapons for use against Palestinians in Gaza."
Both groups are now considering their next actions. Fellow GLAN lawyer Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe emphasized, "Now that the government has taken this important step, it must do much, much more, and abide by its obligations under international law to do everything in its power to prevent the commission of genocide."
Israel faces an ongoing South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its nearly 11-month assault on Gaza, which has killed at least 40,786 Palestinians, injured another 94,224, and forcibly displaced most of the enclave's 2.3 million residents, who are struggling to find food, water, shelter, and adequate medical care.
The Associated Pressreported that "British firms sell a relatively small amount of weapons and components to Israel compared to major suppliers such as the U.S. and Germany. Earlier this year, the government said military exports to Israel amounted to £42 million ($53 million) in 2022."
Still, the suspension could increase pressure on other allies of Israel to take similar action and
strain relations with the U.S. government—which, under President Joe Biden, has showered Israel with weapons and diplomatic support since the current escalation of the decadeslong conflict began in October.
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Russia's Lavrov Warns US That World War III Wouldn't Be Confined to Europe
"They have a mindset of a master sitting somewhere out there overseas and believing to be totally safe and secure, thinking that not only Ukrainians, but also... Europeans would be willing to do the dirty work and die for them."
Aug 28, 2024
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday warned the United States that if the war in Ukraine escalates into a wider military conflict, a potential World War III would not be limited to battlefields in Europe.
While taking questions from journalists two-and-a-half years after Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion, Lavrov was asked to address recent reporting in The Guardian about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wanting to use long-range Storm Shadow missiles that "threaten Moscow and St. Petersburg" to force Russia to the negotiating table.
As the British newspaper explained: "Storm Shadow missiles were developed primarily by an Anglo-French collaboration and are made by European joint venture MBDA, which also has an Italian partner. But because some of its components are supplied by the U.S., the White House also has to agree to its use inside Russia. It has so far refused to do so, fearing an escalation of the conflict."
Lavrov declared that "this is blackmail, an attempt to pretend that the West seeks to avoid any excessive escalation. In reality, they are full of mischief. Avoiding escalation is not what the West is after. To put it into plain language, they are simply picking a fight."
The longtime Russian minister also pointed to various remarks from John Kirby, the White House national security communications adviser, along the lines of what he said Friday: "We've been watching escalation risks since the beginning of this conflict, and that ain't gonna change. We're always going to be concerned about the potential for the aggression in Ukraine to lead to escalation on the European continent."
Lavrov said that "for Americans, any talk about the Third World War comes down to something that would affect Europe alone, and God forbid if it ever happened. This is quite telling, since this idea reflects the mindset of the American planners and geostrategy experts who believe that they can simply sit the whole thing out. I think that it is important to understand in this situation that we have our own doctrine, including the one governing the use of nuclear weapons. An effort to update it is underway."
"Moreover, these Americans are well aware of the provisions it sets forth. This fact transpires from the Freudian slips they make when they say that having a Third World War would be a bad thing because they do not want Europe to suffer," he continued. "This is what this American mindset comes down to. They have a mindset of a master sitting somewhere out there overseas and believing to be totally safe and secure, thinking that not only Ukrainians, but also, as it turns out, Europeans would be willing to do the dirty work and die for them."
"We have long been hearing speculation about authorizing Ukraine to use not only the Storm Shadow missiles, but also U.S.-made long-range missiles," the minister noted. "Now, all we can do is confirm once again that playing with fire is a dangerous thing for the men and women in charge of nuclear weapons across the Western world, but they are playing with matches as if they never grew up."
While there are nine nuclear-armed nations, the United States and Russia collectively have roughly 90% of the global arsenal. Since the Kremlin launched its invasion in February 2022, as the U.S. and Europe have armed Ukraine's soldiers, Putin and other Russian officials—along with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg—have stoked fears of nuclear weapons use.
Mikhail Sheremet, who represents Crimea—which Russia invaded and annexed from Ukraine a decade ago—in Russia's State Duma, toldTASS on Tuesday that the U.S. should consider the consequences of giving Ukrainian troops long-range cruise missiles.
"The ball is now in the U.S.' court but it's clearly finding it difficult to play the game because it will have to take reality into consideration and carefully weigh everything before passing the ball to Ukraine, which aims to drag the U.S. and Europe into a potential World War III," Sheremet told the Russian news agency.
"Undoubtedly, the U.S. will try to implement its far-reaching aggressive plans to provide cruise missiles to the Kyiv regime. They will probably try to do that through Europe, which they have under their thumb," he added. "But in any case, the price of this decision will be too high for them to pay, leading to the loss of their own statehood."
Earlier this month, Ukraine attacked Russia's Kursk region and "has carved out a slice of territory in the biggest foreign attack on Russia since World War II," Reutersreported Tuesday. As the outlet detailed:
Russia has said that Western weaponry, including British tanks and U.S. rocket systems, have been used by Ukraine in Kursk. Kyiv has confirmed using U.S. HIMARS missiles to take out bridges in Kursk.
Washington says it was not informed about Ukraine's plans ahead of the surprise incursion into Kursk. The United States has also said it did not take any part in the operation.
Multiple Russian government officials have made clear that they don't believe those U.S. claims.
Still, based on interviews that Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft recently conducted with "members of the Russian establishment, including former diplomats, members of think tanks, academics, and businesspeople, as well as a few members of the wider public," the majority of them want "an early cease-fire roughly along the existing battle lines."
"Most of my conversations took place before the Ukrainian invasion of the Russian province of Kursk. As far as I can make out, however, this Ukrainian success has not changed basic Russian calculations and views," Lieven wrote Tuesday for Foreign Policy.
"In the end, of course, Russia's negotiating position will be decided by Putin—with whom I did not speak," he acknowledged. "Nobody I spoke to in Moscow claimed to know for sure what Putin is thinking. However, the consensus was that while he made terrible mistakes at the start of the war, he is a pragmatist capable of taking military advice and recognizing military reality."
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You Will Hear the Names of the Dead: The DNC in Chicago
It is easy to stand on a police line. It’s easy to yell at politicians. It’s easy to say things and do things by yourself. It’s hard to organize your neighbors and talk to new people about things they don’t immediately understand. But we must.
Aug 27, 2024
A few weeks ago, I plunged into Lake Michigan. Unlike usual, the water felt warm. It was easy to run all the way in and easy to float over the waves. Montrose beach was crowded with families, pitching tents to keep out of the sun. Children played, laughed, and cried. Midwesterners who still hadn’t made it out into the sun crisped their pale shoulders. It would have been a perfectly relaxing day, but fighter jets circled above everyone’s heads—doing dives and turning every which way. Mothers plugged their children’s ears and I saw a baby wearing noise canceling headphones.
It was the Air and Water show—an annual proud display of American military capabilities. They are the same jets that fly over the shores of Gaza, dropping bombs on families. That’s what I thought about—it was just by happenstance that we were there watching these planes as a performance rather than in Gaza as a weapon of mass slaughter. The more places I travel to, the more I realize how much the world looks the same. People everywhere are really kind and generous—the only thing that separates us is if the stars align to have us born under the boot of the United States or not.
As the jets flew over our heads I felt my stomach sour. In two weeks, the Democratic National Convention would come to Chicago and it was a present opportunity to make clear the contradictions that kept me up at night. Once months and months away, the DNC was finally around the corner.
Last week, members of the Democratic Party came from all parts of the country to convene in Chicago. They were coronating Kamala Harris as their presidential nominee, a woman no one really voted for. Even in the face of this blatant lack of democracy, the party members were elated to choose her. They carried signs with her husband’s name and applause erupted from the tens of thousands of people in the United Center when she declared that the United States would have the “most lethal military” in the world under her leadership. To the people well aware of the millions of people the United States killed in the last twenty years alone, her statement was a threat.
The week was marked by the obvious gaps between the people going into the United Center and the people outside of it.
There was a young woman that sat outside the exit of the Democratic National Convention on its third night reading the names of the children Israel has killed in the last ten months. She did it for hours, until her speaker battery died. She did it alone, taking care to pronounce every child’s name correctly and to say their age at the time of their murder. Without her, many of the DNC guests wouldn’t necessarily be confronted with the carnage members of their party is carrying out.
Outside the gates of the DNC I saw a young woman making sure the children of Palestine weren’t just numbers, and I saw people laughing at her for doing so. They laughed loudly and mocked her voice. They mocked the names of the dead babies. They yelled at her to leave them alone. They left the coronation ceremony livid that they had to even hear about Gaza.
That night was demoralizing, and it’s something I will remember for the rest of my life.
Democrats laugh at the names of dead children. They openly refuse to let a Palestinian speak for two minutes at their four day long event. They order riot cops on people protesting a genocide. They have their parties, fundraisers, and happy hours while bodies pile up. If they really didn’t think the genocide was so bad, they wouldn’t get so mad at us for reminding them. They knew that the people they were rallying behind are cheering on mass slaughter—they’ve just weighed their fun, their careers, and their vanity against the lives of 180,000 Palestinians and decided that nothing could be more important than themselves. I don’t care what they said to me, or my friends, but I hope our faces and our presence made them feel even an ounce of discomfort. In the best case scenario, I hope they went to sleep hearing the echoes of the martyrs' names. I still foolishly hope they turn a corner at some point.
There’s a lot to be said about the Democratic National Convention. It happened in the city with the largest Palestinian population in the United States. Plenty of our neighbors here have lost dozens and dozens of their immediate and extended families and Kamala Harris took to the stage to promise her ironclad support to their executioners. Riot cops filed into the streets, prepared to use the kettling tactics they used from the Israeli military. All of a sudden, the place I call home felt unrecognizable. The air of the coronation felt heavy—it didn’t feel like home. There were points where I was with thousands of other people, chanting in unison, but still felt so lonely. Luxury SUVs carried important people into important buildings for important events. And between us and the importance, there were police with rifles strapped to their chests.
But there were also good people. Like the girl outside the convention. And the thousand of people that marched with us. And the Shake Shack worker that joined us because he had 15 minutes before his shift started. And the security that had to kick us out to keep their job but told us how much what we were doing meant to them.
In the lead up to the DNC, we spent so much time thinking about the last DNC that happened here in 1968. Protests against the Vietnam War took to the streets in small numbers, demanding an end to the war. They were met with horrible police brutality, and mass arrests with long legal battles in their wake. Our mentors from ‘68 urged us not to be nostalgic for those days. I still admire them for going face to face with the Chicago riot cops, but I’ve also taken their reflections of ‘68 very seriously—they didn’t end the war on Vietnam. Many of them feel like they could have focused more on building a sustainable movement that people could join for the long haul. The 2024 DNC in Chicago presented us a unique opportunity—we had to take this huge moment of mass mobilization and make sure our efforts and organization doesn’t get washed away after all the balloons on the United Center floor had popped, and the important people flew out of O’Hare. When the dust settlesd and the most powerful people in the world left our city, how should we keep fighting? I was happy when so many people asked us what was next, because it meant we were thinking long term.
In our own discourses on the left, the week was consumed by the discussion of tactics—what works and what doesn’t. An organizer I know reminded us about our responsibility to be a movement people want to join. There are plenty of people who are sympathetic to our cause but haven’t figured out how to be part of it. There’s millions of people without a movement home. Our cause is already popular, it’s already growing every day. Are we doing what we can to make sure people know where to go? Are we keeping our eyes on the prize or are we getting so wrapped up in nostalgia that we can’t see what we will be capable of a year from now if we move strategically? We are nothing without the people. Our responsibility is to the people—not to our egos, not to our careers, not to the vanity of our organizations, and not to our impulses. As a movement we generally have to be better at unlearning instant gratification and also embracing a diversity of tactics. But that’s something for another day.
It is easy to stand on a police line. It’s easy to yell at politicians. It’s easy to say things and do things by yourself. It’s hard to organize your neighbors and talk to new people about things they don’t immediately understand—my hope comes from the idea that once we get really good at that, the light at the end of the tunnel will be as clear as day.
Chicagoans are loud, principled, and good people and because of that there're 2.6 million reasons to love this city. For a few days Chicagoans made certain Democrats couldn’t walk around our city without seeing and hearing about the people of Gaza. It’s my hope that we see that as a small success, and also my hope that we saw the week of mobilizations as a jumping off point for building the world we want to see.
Lake Michigan is connected to the ocean through narrow waterways along the northern border of the United States, and someone mentioned at a protest that it’s not unfathomable that the waves crashing onto the shores of Gaza were once here in Chicago, and vice versa. Even if we don’t have skies that are absent of fighter jets in my lifetime, every second spent moving us towards that kind of life was worth it. As long as we don’t throw in the towel, we are closer than ever to that reality.
This blog originally appeared here on Proof That I’m Alive.Keep ReadingShow Less
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