Don't Abandon Israel
On Saturday evening, news began to filter through to various Whats App Groups that the IDF may have recovered the bodies of six of the hostages, held by Hamas for 11 months within the tunnels under Gaza.
Most people didn't want to believe it, and urged caution. Others with connections in Israel were picking up clues that the story was almost certainly true.
By Sunday morning the reality had come crashing through, that not only were the corpses of six hostages retrieved, but that they had only recently been murdered, apparently by the terrorists as they heard the IDF close in.
At a counter-protest in central London later that day, it was clear that many Jews and Israelis had not slept from worry after those first announcements. Tears were shed, candles lit, flags and posters hung.
UK Failing Israel
For those of us who are not Jewish or Israeli it's almost impossible to imagine the pain. Nearly everyone at the protest is either related to or connected to someone in Israel who had experienced 7.10. They had either lost loved ones, or were in some way linked to a hostage or a hostage family.
So it is at this time, when Jews and Israelis in the UK are in desperate need of solace–and when the nation of Israel faces existential threats from all sides–it's at this juncture that more than ever, the West must stand alongside Israel.
Yet the West–and the UK in particular–has failed the test.
David Lammy
In the UK, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) have sought to undermine our country's support for Israel in ways that seem both petty and naive. Since winning power on July 4th, they have:
- reinstated funding for UNRWA;
- withdrawn the UK's objection to the ICC's arrest warrants for Israeli leaders;
- implemented a secret arms embargo.
Reinstating UNRWA Funding
On July 19th Lammy announced in Parliament that UNRWA funding would restart, asserting that:
UNRWA is absolutely central to these efforts. No other agency can get aid into Gaza at the scale needed.
Kiran Stacey
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Yet at various periods during the latest phase of the conflict, it has been other UN agencies and NGOs that have filled the gaps. In fact, organisations like World Food Programme (WFP) and Egyptian Red Crescent have increased their capacity whilst UNRWA struggled.
But worse, during 7.10 there were accusations of at least 12 UNRWA employees "actively participating" with a further 30 being involved. One shocking example is the graphic CCTV footage of UNRWA employee Faisal Ali Mussalem al-Naami picking up the corpse of Jonathan Samerano, and placing him in a UN jeep:
Meet Faisal Ali Mussalem Al Naami: the @UNRWA social worker who commits terrorist attacks against innocent civilians in his spare time 👇 https://t.co/qwPDLp08PV
— Eytan Halon 🎗️ (@eytanhalon) February 17, 2024
Yet Lammy's statement in Parliament said that the UK government was:
...reassured that after Catherine Colonna’s independent review, UNRWA is ensuring they meet the highest standards of neutrality and strengthening its procedures, including on vetting.
This is not only naive, but a kick in the teeth to Israel. It is well known that Hamas use UNRWA facilities from which to launch rockets. It is well known that UNRWA provide anti-Semitic teaching materials to schools. At the very least more time and checks needed to be established. Yet the FCDO and Lammy are putting their own posturing above the safety of Israelis, in effect arming Hamas and abandoning Israel.
Secret Arms Embargo
One of the first things that the new government put in place was a pause on new arms export licenses to Israel. This is seen by many as a secret arms embargo, since it is not clear whether exports will continue and under what conditions.
This is aggressive for a number of reasons.
Firstly, at a time when Israel is being attacked by Hezbollah and the IRGC, to remove any arms sales, no matter how small, is to imply that Israel should be defenceless, and that it does not have the right to defend itself. This is particularly disturbing given the murders only a few days ago of the six hostages.
And secondly, the action is predicated on the idea that Israel 'may' use the weapons in a manner that contravenes international law, when Israel has repeatedly and consistently gone out of its way to follow–and exceed–the requirements of international law.
The IDF issue warnings to the civilian population to vacate buildings that may be attacked. They choose their timing and location of targets based on as much intelligence as possible, that will help to reduce civilian casualties. And even today, fighting is paused in order to facilitate a polio vaccination programme to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of children.
For the UK government to even consider suspending arms sales on these grounds is to descend to the level of virtue-signalling student politicians, rather than the grown-up politics of a nation that purports to be an ally of Israel–a point borne out by the former US national security advisor Robert O'Brien's statement that this action will almost certainly have negative consequences for the UK:
Patrick Wintour
Write to Your MP
To write to your MP on any of these three themes, and to demand that they don't abandon Israel, you can use the templates provided by the National Jewish Assembly:
