Three former Supreme Court judges and 597 other lawyers have written to the Prime Minister to ask him to act against Israel by cutting arms sales. Britain is a signatory to the Genocide Convention and is therefore required to do what it can to prevent genocide. But the emotive issue of genocide isn’t the main point; it’s that Israel’s actions in Gaza towards its population are wrong.
The question of whether there is a genocide in Gaza has not yet been decided by the International Court of Justice (though it said there is a “plausible risk”). And lawyers being lawyers, it will be months before they can pronounce decisively on the matter. But what the court has said is that Israel potentially has a case to answer. The UK arms sales to Israel are a blip in the great scheme of things, by comparison with the US billions, but it matters as a signal of moral indignation from a country friendly to Israel.
The appalling situation in Gaza is being turned into an element of the domestic culture wars in this country
It matters too as a way to make an important point, which is that the atrocities carried out by Hamas on October 7 are not a licence for Israel do egregiously wrong things in response.
As Lord Sumption observed: “Just because you have been attacked, and provoked, however outrageously, it doesn’t mean you can do whatever you like. It doesn’t mean you can indiscriminately slaughter civilians. It doesn’t mean you can kill innocent children. It doesn’t mean you can attack aid convoys. It doesn’t mean you can flatten hospitals.” And Israel’s response has not been discriminating or proportionate. The attack on the aid workers may or may not have been a mistake, but it was of a piece with IDF actions in reducing a population to starvation levels.
It also matters that conservative — small C — people say all this, because we have got to the point where the appalling situation in Gaza is turning into an element of the domestic culture wars. Are you outraged when hospitals are flattened? Well, you must be stupid not to know that they’re used by Hamas. Are you angry that innocent civilians are being killed — the 33,000 victims of the Israeli offensive are not all Hamas fighters. Well, have you forgotten about the Hamas atrocities… the stuff of horror films, only real. Are you concerned about a population being shuttled from one unsafe part of Gaza to the next? Whose side are you on? This stupid reductionism, whereby you’re a woke, borderline antisemitic supporter of Islamist militants or a friend of Israel won’t wash, not least because so many Jews decline to make a choice which puts them in company with Benjamin Netanyahu. His most cogent critics are other Israelis, like the brilliant Daniel Seidemann, whose advice Lord Cameron often seeks.
The 600 lawyers are not antisemites. Lord Sumption makes the obvious point that the reason we are so distressed by Israeli actions is that we regard Israel essentially as a Western country; we hold it to our standards.
And that is why Britain should take a stand against the Israeli government’s actions. Let’s park for now the fundamental problem that Mr Netanyahu and his extremist allies are responsible for the extension of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied territories which make a just settlement so much harder. Let’s stick to this simple point: Britain is not just a friend of Israel — it’s that more valuable thing, a critical friend.
