This time it's personal

The ICC warrants and British complicity

FOR MORE THAN A year now, the Royal Air Force has been flying reconnaissance missions over the ruins of Gaza - 645 missions to be exact, far more even than the United States or Israel itself. While the MOD swears up and down that its purpose in running these flights is to look for hostages, it prompts a serious question worth pursuing: does the British government provide its data to the Israelis? and has that data been used to make targeting decisions by the IDF?

The announcement yesterday of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant should provoke a serious crisis at the highest levels of the British state. If it wishes to avoid tipping over from complicity to active encouragement of a world-historical crime, it must cease now in providing any succour or support to the Israeli state, which has forfeited its right to pursue any kind of legitimate war on its own terms:

After the ICC’s arrest warrants, anything less than an immediate and total British arms embargo on the state of Israel should be considered a plain endorsement of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Anything weaker than a blanket ban on the involvement of British military personnel and equipment in support of the IDF will transform abetment into active encouragement. If Keir Starmer and David Lammy – or any other Labour MP – wish to avoid imperilling their own souls or being tainted for the rest of their lives with the stink of the mass grave, they must sanction any sworn member of the Israeli government and the bloodthirsty settler movement it represents. The Home Office and the Attorney General ought to publicly commit themselves to a policy: if Benjamin Netanyahu or Yoav Gallant ever enter British territory they will face immediate arrest and the speedy transfer to a holding cell in The Hague.

Read the full article: Britain’s complicity with Netanyahu’s war must end