Demand an arms embargo on Israel now!

FAO: Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab MP, 

Last week, it was reported that Israeli Chief of General Staff Aviv Kohavi virtually met with Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir Nick Carter and signed a joint agreement to “formalise and enhance” military co-operation between the UK and Israel.

The UK government must revoke the deal, and implement an arms embargo to hold Israel to account for its continued violations of international law and Palestinian human rights. 

This enhanced cooperation is deeply disturbing to people of conscience in the UK. The Israeli military violates the basic tenets of international humanitarian law in a variety of ways. This includes through enforcing the belligerent military occupation of Palestinian land, as well as the land, air and naval siege on Gaza. 

Moreover, during the last two years, the Israeli military has indiscriminately targeted Palestinian protesters in Gaza, marching for their basic human rights as part of the Great March of Return, killing over 250 and injuring over 30,000.

It is only through indiscriminate military force that Israel can maintain its brutal regime of dispossession, occupation, and subjugation of the Palestinian population.

As a result, Palestinian civil society has repeatedly called for the UK government to enact measures to hold Israel to account under international law, and end the climate of international complicity with Israel’s human rights violations. This includes ending all military-security cooperation with Israel, and a ban on arms trade.

I stand with Palestinian civil society and call for this latest deal to be rescinded, alongside the enactment of an immediate two-way arms embargo until Israel complies with international law, and stops using military force to violate the human rights of the Palestinian people.