Georgia L Gilholy is a freelance journalist.
According to the Jewish Chronicle, the British government has begun suspending arms export licences to Israel, pending a ministerial policy review. David Lammy has also announced a renewal of aid for UNRWA, the UN agency that just fired 9 staff members who may have taken part in the Oct. 7 massacre.
This is hardly the first time UK authorities have clashed with Israel or the Zionist movement that brought the modern state to fruition. The relationship has never been straightforward, to put it mildly. The British Empire’s involvement with the Zionist movement was fraught with contradictions.
On one hand, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 expressed support for a Jewish homeland in the UK-managed mandate for Palestine that emerged following the Ottoman Empire’s collapse, a significant diplomatic gesture.
Interestingly, it came after decades of support for the restoration of the Jewish people to the so-called Holy Land from many premillennialism-minded Anglicans, including social reformer Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. On the other hand, British policies often conflicted with this commitment, influenced by other geopolitical pressures and the opposition from Arab resistance and violence.
Perhaps the most controversial was 1939’s MacDonald White Paper, which severely curtailed Jewish immigration to the mandate, allowing only 75,000 Jewish immigrants over five years (an average of 15,000 per year). On the eve of the horrors of the Holocaust, Jewish immigration to the area was mostly paused.
Arab immigration remained effectively unregulated. Ironically, the tens of thousands of Arab migrants recently arrived from nearby Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Egypt had largely been drawn by the economic boom wrought on by Jewish and British enterprises.
Neither has the British state been without grievances. Among its other crimes, in 1944 the self-professed Zionist terror group Lehi who advocated mass expulsion of Arabs from Palestine and Transjordan, assassinated Lord Moyne, the highest-ranking British official in the region. In 1948 the group bombed British-ran Cairo-Haifa passenger trains.
Despite several of their former members being rehabilitated in Israeli public life, they were and remain highly disliked by the majority of Israelis and Zionists. Just as Oswald Moseley and the pro-Stalin Communist Party of Great Britain did not represent the general attitude of Britain, the Lehi and their ilk did not define Zionism.
During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Britain maintained a neutral stance officially but was criticised by Israel for its perceived pro-Arab leanings, given Britain’s prior alliances with Arab nations. The UK, along with France and Israel, launched a military intervention against Egypt following President Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal. This marked a period of closer military cooperation between the UK and Israel. The UK maintained an officially neutral stance during both the 1967 Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
Throughout the 1980s things were equally as chilling, with the UK consistently supporting UN Resolution 242, which called for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories in exchange for peace, not to mention London’s stark criticism of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Since the 1990s trade has grown as has military and intelligence cooperation. This has developed despite ongoing tensions, with the UK often criticising Israeli settlement policies and actions in the occupied territories, aligning itself with broader European Union positions.
Nor has the UK publicly given unconditional support for Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas. Last November, then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, urged for a “humanitarian pause” to allow aid to reach civilians and to create conditions for a ceasefire.
The reality is that UK-Israel relations have never been wholly friendly or antagonistic. Nor has there ever been a formal alliance. Rather, they have evolved based on the prevailing international and domestic political climates. For instance, while the UK has been a critical ally in intelligence sharing and counterterrorism, it has also voiced criticism over Israeli policies, particularly its claim to disputed territories such as the West Bank (or Judea and Samaria) and the Golan Heights. Both of these areas were gained by Israel in defensive wars.
Given that the UK’s arms deals with Israel are small fry compared to the annual the U.S. grants Israel in aid, anti-Israel voices often point to the U.S. as Israel’s backer-in-chief. Still, the notion that U.S. support for Israel is purely a result of a powerful pro-Israel lobby is a simplistic view of a more complex reality.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is at the apex. Yet this lobby is one among countless medium-level interest groups in American politics. AIPAC has not even featured in the list of the top-spending lobbying groups since 1997. Far from being the project of a nefarious Jewish lobby, U.S.-Israel aid is, as noted by Brookings Institution fellow James Kirchick, a “logical extension of America’s postwar power projection.”
This aid is also currently conditioned on the premise that Israel must use it to purchase U.S. military equipment — even if native technology is cheaper and better. Israel consequently compromises on its defence, whilst losing potential export markets as other nations scramble to copy their American inventory. Secondly, Israeli officials consistently admit that these hefty aid packages incentivise them to overspend, undermining their potential to streamline and innovate.
Nor does U.S. military aid to the Middle East simply go to Israel. Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority also receive major annual sums. They are part-vassals of the U.S., not the other way around.
As the Government considers suspending arms sales to Israel, it is crucial to base policy decisions on strategic interests rather than the loudest voices from activists. Calls from some quarters to cut all ties with Israel are often driven by ideological stances rather than practical considerations. Arguments that demand an immediate halt to arms sales without regard for the broader implications for UK security and international relations risk undermining British interests.
The recent foiling of Hamas plots against diaspora Jews and the discovery of Hezbollah weapon caches in the UK underscore the importance of intelligence sharing with Israel. By severing ties with Israel or diminishing cooperation, as many Leftists and Islamist activists are clamouring for, the UK is far more likely to jeopardise its safety than it is Israel’s.
Lord Palmerston, himself no stranger to a foreign policy spat, once wrote that in such matters “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow”—the UK must continually evaluate its relationship with Israel through the lens of national interest and strategic advantage, as it ought to with any state; and as Israel also has the right to.
Attempts to condition Anglo-Israeli relations via the distorted view of the Arab-Israeli conflict, often driven by anti-Jewish prejudice on the far-left and their Islamist bedfellows, are unwise. Sadly, it seems such moves are already in play.
