On September 2, the British government announced the suspension of 30 of 350 arms export licenses to Israel. It said the arms exports could be used to “commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”
While this announcement has been welcomed by some as a positive development that reflects the growing international pressure on Israel to end its genocidal war in Gaza, it does nothing to fulfil the UK’s obligations under international law. In fact, it reflects the insistence of NATO members to override international law in order to fulfil their commitments to the Alliance.
In the context of Israel’s ongoing genocidal war in Gaza and the West Bank, all states have a duty to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel. This duty stems from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rulings of January and July, which found that Israel was likely committing genocidal acts in Gaza in violation of the Genocide Convention and was illegally occupying Palestine.
This duty has also been affirmed by the UN Human Rights Council and by various UN experts. The cessation of arms, energy and other essential exports to Israel aims to ensure the protection of the Palestinian people.
In its legal note on the suspension of certain arms sales, the British government describes as probable violations of international humanitarian law the breaches of Israel’s duty to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid and the mistreatment of prisoners. The British Foreign Office lawyers who drafted the note appear to accept that Israel’s involvement in Gaza and its conduct of hostilities are lawful.
This reasoning has little basis in international law, as it is well established that Israel has no right to defend itself in the territories it occupies and that its current offensive conduct far exceeds the permissible parameters of self-defense. Some have even argued that its stated military objective of annihilating Hamas constitutes in itself evidence of genocidal intent.
The UK government’s interpretation fits within the highly controversial framework of the US “war on terror” in the 2000s, widely accepted by its NATO allies. This framework is not considered part of customary international law and represents a blatant attempt to create an exceptional space for powerful states to continue the proliferation of war in the Global South.
The British government denies that Israel is committing violations in the conduct of hostilities, such as disproportionate attacks on civilians or the destruction of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and schools. It justifies its position by saying that the available information is insufficient to support such claims. It also disputes Israel’s allegations that Hamas is using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
These claims rest on shaky legal and factual grounds. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office considers the evidence presented by Israel to be more credible than that presented by the Palestinians, despite Israel’s rich history of pathological lying. Furthermore, as has been repeatedly stated, the human shield argument has a history of being used in bad faith to justify mass civilian casualties in colonial contexts.
The British government has made clear that it will continue to supply parts for the F-35 fighter jet to Israel under a NATO programme, despite the aircraft being used against civilians in Gaza. In his statement to the House of Commons, Foreign Secretary David Lammy justified the exemption by saying that the UK’s participation in the programme was “crucial to wider peace and security”.
This choice of words is ironic given that Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the Middle East in general threatens international peace and security. The notion of “peace and security” is also a cornerstone of the United Nations Charter, and UN member states have an obligation to preserve it.
Lammy is obviously not referring to the UN Charter but to NATO’s security language. According to the logic of the military alliance, “peace and security” are what serves the current US-led world order.
The North Atlantic Treaty, which established NATO, stipulates that members’ security obligations do not take precedence over international law. In practice, however, as the current situation shows, member states give priority to NATO’s obligations over international law. They mask this lack of respect with flimsy interpretations of the law and relevant facts.
NATO member states are defying the ICJ’s July ruling on the illegality of the Israeli occupation, which makes clear that security concerns cannot override international law. In his separate statement on the matter, ICJ Judge Dire Tladi wrote:
“First, it should be recalled that all States, not just Israel, have security interests. Palestine is one of them. Often, when one refers to ‘security concerns’, one gets the impression that only Israel has security concerns or that somehow Israel’s security concerns outweigh those of Palestine. The second general point to be made is that security interests as such, however serious or legitimate, cannot override the rules of international law, as the Court has stressed.”
Like the UK, the Netherlands has also refused to withdraw from the F-35 fighter jet programme, despite a court ruling ordering a halt to exports to Israel. The Dutch government has been accused of selling parts for the Israeli military to the US, which then re-exports them to Israel. In July, a Dutch court refused to stop the government from doing so and allowed the programme to continue. Again, this decision is not in line with international law.
Other NATO members, including France and Germany, have also flouted their international legal obligations and continued to export weapons to Israel. Canada has suspended new arms licenses but retained existing ones, meaning the flow of weapons will not stop. By far the largest arms exporter to Israel – the United States – has continued to send billions of dollars worth of weapons and munitions, despite repeated evidence from human rights groups that its weapons and bombs have been used in attacks on civilian targets, causing significant deaths.
The power of the United States, asserted through NATO, casts a shadow over normalized illegality. Arms-exporting states sustain the flow of arms in the service of geopolitical and economic interests, thereby becoming directly complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people. But international law is clear: supplying arms to a state implicated in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and plausible genocide is itself a crime.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.