Following the Zionist occupation assassination of Western aid workers (except one Palestinian) both civilians and security advisors in the Gaza Strip in early April 2024, politicians, media practitioners and human rights activists in Britain demanded that the British Conservative government stop selling British-made weapons to Netanyahu’s Genocidal regime. On the face of it these calls sounded moral !?

These statements took me to a meeting we held with the British Foreign Office following the “first” war on the Gaza Strip at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, when we sat with British Foreign Office officials, which through the conversation thought that we would demand that it stop selling weapons to the occupation, but we didn’t. 

This was when Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair was replaced by Gordon Brown, who appointed David Miliband as Foreign Secretary (now chairs the IRC's Global Relief Committee).

As a comprehensive starting point, we must ask the basic moral question here, which is: Is it possible at all to deal with a Zionist regime that occupies Palestine, and implements a three-fold project like an equilateral triangle consisting of: 1) Ethnic cleansing 2) Genocide crimes and 3) Apartheid - and did not “scrounge” to commit a an unlimited range of brutal crimes against humanity, in particular the crimes of CleansoCide (ethnic cleansing and genocide) in Palestine in general, and in the Gaza Strip in particular in the last six months?

However, in order to serve the purpose and confine it within the framework of this narrow article, we will suffice with taking a look at the military trade exchange between the current Zionist occupation of Palestine and the occupation that preceded it; The British Empire), which handed over Palestine and paved the way to the climax of the (ongoing) Nakba (1948 Catastrophe) the same Empire which is currently represented by the British government (after the official colonialism of the British Empire ended). 

The balance sheet indicates that Britain, since 2008, sold weapons parts to the Israeli Occupation with an annual value of roughly/average of 40 million pounds sterling annually.

If we compare this with the military trade balance between the Israeli Occupation and the United States (at least $3 billion annually, excluding indirect and undeclared), we find that what Britain sells to the Israeli occupation does not exceed 0.02% percent of what the occupation arms budget. 

Going back to our meeting with the Director of the British Foreign Office in 2009 it is worth noting that we surprised him and his colleagues when we did not ask that Britain stop selling weapons to the occupation. Rather, the moral logical request that we dropped in front of them was our demand that Britain stop importing weapons from Israeli arms companies. Here, the British Foreign Office was surprised by the request because we focused on the real military trade balance.

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Humanitarian aid, sans humanity

Today, Britain imports from arms companies, the majority of which are owned by the Israeli government (Its Ministry of War), worth roughly 2 billion pounds sterling, including one contract to import drones worth no less than 1 billion pounds annually, in addition to many other contracts.

So, if the British Conservative government really wants to influence the criminal practices of the Zionist occupation in Palestine and the Gaza Strip and stop the 7-month old CleansoCide, it must announce the cessation of importing weapons from Israeli companies.

This does not come to say that the demand to stop selling British weapons to the occupation is wrong (that is if it is genuine and not only as an act of the obnoxious English posturing as it will neither affect the course of the crimes of CleansoCide committed by Netanyahu in the Gaza Strip nor be activated. 

Nonetheless, it will certainly affect the public discourse that aims to withdraw the “legal and moral legitimacy” of the crimes carried out by the occupation in the Gaza Strip. 

We are, however, of the opinion that every pressure, even the weight of a feather, is important, including the “pressure” that came from British government employees in the Ministry of Defence (the number of whom does not exceed the fingers of one hand) who bureaucratically manage the process of issuing licenses for the sale of weapons from Britain to the occupation, and who understood that they might be exposed to legal accusation for being complicit through their involvement (as a result of selling British weapons to the occupation) in war crimes or crimes against humanity and/or collusion with the Israeli occupation in committing these crimes, as a result of selling weapons to the Israeli occupation.

When we said to the British Foreign Office in 2009 that “perhaps now, with a new Foreign Secretary (then David Miliband) coming from a left-wing Jewish origin and the son of a Marxist Jewish academician, he might be able to take such step as well to implement this policy”? Their body language indicated that this could not happen. Nonetheless, they added that unless we took legislative steps through Parliament or the judiciary that prevented the British government from military trade with the Israeli occupation this wouldn’t happen. 

We have repeatedly argued that the greatest challenge facing the just Palestinian cause in the “Collective West”, and Britain in particular (the mother of the criminal Balfour Declaration and the catastrophic Nakba) is not the British public opinion and popular mood, which has been and increasingly by and large fully supportive of Palestine in an increasing manner. Rather, the greatest challenge was and still is the chances in changing the positions of decision makers and those who (or those who walk in the corridors of power) and are subject to the influence of the Zionist lobby -  and still support - and even supported - the Israeli occupation in its crimes of CleansoCide since its inception in the Gaza Strip now seven months ago.

It is true that some of the British voices calling for the need for Britain to stop selling weapons (even though this might have no effect on the occupation unless it will embarrass other regimes in the West such as Germany (see the case of Nicaragua against Germany at the ICJ) are sincere, however, some of these voices fall within the framework of posturing and range between disingenuous behaviour or gambit tricks  of those politicians who pretend to be moral, even though they know the truth (the fact that this will not have an effect) and are trying to market a deceptive “moral” position for the public, in order to improve the reputation of the British Conservative Party (a significant decline in popularity has been recorded), some of whose ministers at the beginning of the CleansoCide in the Gaza Strip acted as if they were spokespersons for Netanyahu. 

Ways to influence decision-makers in Britain, which is on the threshold of local and legislative elections, are not few, and below we suggest a major and serious challenge that would punish Netanyahu’s regime and information about it is available in open sources for those who can do basic professional research: Every year, a the famous Farnborough air weapons exhibition in Britain hosts also Israeli arms-technology companies. 

This year the Farnborough Air Show will take place in the last week of July 2024. Experts in defence affairs have already hinted in their media appearances that if official Britain really wanted to put significant pressure on the occupation (Britain’s purchase of hundreds of millions of pounds provides the occupation treasury with funds that contribute to the management of the crimes of CleansoCide in the Gaza Strip in particular), then it should cancel/ban the participation of Israeli occupation companies in this exhibition in Britain, which is marketing itself to sell billions of dollars at this (also) arms exhibition. Will you dare to raise the glove to wipe the blood of the slaughtered children, women and civilians of Palestine from your faces, which are stained as a result of the actions of your own hands?