Tag Archives: israel hamas war

Lib Dems welcome suspension of some arms sales to Israel

By The Voice | Tue 3rd September 2024 - 9:24 am

Yesterday foreign secretary David Lammy announced a partial suspension of arms sales to Israel.

Our foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran welcomed the move but said it was overdue:

This action should have been taken long ago by the previous government, who failed to take any leadership on the matter. Liberal Democrats welcome this announcement as a step forward from the government.

Liberal Democrat MPs will now carefully scrutinise the details of the Foreign Secretary’s announcement, including those export licences which the Government has not suspended. We are concerned that the decision is made solely on risk of use in Gaza and not the West Bank.

Every day seems to bring new dreadful scenes from the region, and the UK must be doing everything that it can to ensure that an immediate bilateral ceasefire is secured – to put an end to the humanitarian devastation in Gaza, ensure the hostages are brought home, and open the door to a two-state solution.

Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael also welcomed David Lammy ‘s announcement but said that the Government needs to go further to drive peace talks to end the violence in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Alistair said:

Observations of an ex pat: Suspend arms shipments to Israel

By Tom Arms | Sat 6th April 2024 - 9:50 am

Selling weapons to Israel is a breach of international law.

This is not my opinion. It is the judgement of 600 British legal eagles, including three former members of the UK Supreme Court. They have been joined by 130 parliamentarians and the three main Opposition parties have demanded a debate on the issue.

It is also the verdict of the governments of Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Japan and Spain. They have all suspended arms shipments to Israel.

All the above agree that Israel is breaking a number of international laws with its attacks on civilians in Gaza. Furthermore, that countries that supply the Israeli government with weapons are complicit in breaking those laws.

So what laws is Israel breaching? To start with there is Article 7 of the UN Arms Trade Treaty which “prohibits the export of arms where is an overriding risk that the weapons can be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

It is an international law which has been enforced by Britain in the past. In 2019 the British Court of Appeals used it to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia based on the Saudis indiscriminate bombing of Yemen.

There is also the 1948 Geneva Convention Against Genocide, which, ironically, was enacted as a response to the killing of 6 million Jews in the Nazi Holocaust. This convention prohibits “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial or religious group.” It goes on to describe the prohibited acts: “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the group as a whole.”

The Israeli government and their supporters say that claims that they are breaching international law are “nonsense.” But, so far the Israeli Defence Force has caused the death of more than 33,000 Palestinians in Gaza and seriously injured 52,000 more. Eighty-five percent – 1.9 million people have had their homes destroyed by Israeli bombs. Gaza’s hospitals are medical rubble. Israel’s refusal to allow food and water into Gaza have created famine conditions. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Gazans are “the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded.”