The BBC reports:
Israel export licences warning from UK
UK arms export licences to Israel will be suspended only if there is fresh violence in Gaza, ministers have said.
The UK has identified 12 licences for components which could be used in equipment in Gaza by Israel. It said it would suspend them “in the event of a resumption of significant hostilities”.
The Lib Dems had urged a suspension regardless of the current ceasefire.
A spokesman said this was “as far as we have been able to reach in collective agreement with the Conservatives”.
The Lib Dem spokesman said it was “no secret” there had been a difference of opinion in the coalition government on the issue of export licences.
What this BBC report, and there is no later one, isn’t making clear is the level of disagreement over these export licences as revealed by their own Ben Judah on Twitter:
All kind of worth a mention I’d have thought…Cable opportunistic and playing to the gallery with a policy that rewards the terrorists.
Definitely worth a mention you’d have thought.
I am surprised that Israel needs anything from Britain.
No doubt in the event of a ban (likely with the craven Cameron and Clegg in charge) the Israelis wil soon learn to do without .
More about the British attempts to deligitimise Israel,
The liberal left has been intent on this for years.
I can just imagine the cheers at the leading universities and in the media.
Need the oil and gas I suppose.
A disgusting little country with no honour left.
Takes me back to when Britain turned its back on its Mandate to help establish a Jewish National Home in Palestine and started to drastically restrict Jewish immigration and even turn away desperate Jewish refugees from the Holocaust while ignoring the illegal flood of Arabs into the territory.
More to the point here, they disarmed the Jews at every opportunity while making sure that the Arabs would take over abandoned British positions as war loomed.
When the Irgun warned the british to evacuate the King David Hotel, they responded by saying, “We do not take orders from Jews.” In those days anti-Semites didn’t have the convenient cover of only being against Israel. Now they do.
No doubt the BBC is watching developments with glee as Britain hopes to again disarm the Jews in a time of crisis.
Neat edit function!
It’s simple but hopefully effective… Unfortunately the edit box is only one row high when I view it on a PC-based browser. Looking for a fix for this.
You can delete comments by just deleting the whole post.
Update browser or different browser perhaps.
Maybe Ben could tweet Vince to get him to DM the skinny?
Because I’d say the spotlight here is definitely on him to explain. As Dan Hodges pointed out in a forceful piece.
(Great pic, btw).
Is BBC-NUJ aware of this?:-
“UK government ‘encouraging Hamas to fire at Israel’”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/08/uk-government-encouraging-hamas-to-fire-at-israel
Until 1977 Israel was governed by Labour politicians, so the British Establishment/BBC supported Israel. In 1977 a Likud government was elected, where upon the Establishment/BBC changed sides and supported the Palestinians. The more Israel asserts its right to exist the stronger the BBC’s support for the Palestinians becomes, and the less critical it becomes of the terrorists.
These British and American governments are a bloody disgrace. The Israelis are fighting what could eventually become our war. We should support the Israelis to the hilt.
Good luck to them!
Moral bankruptcy of those frightened to take side between Good and Evil.
A sovereign nation, Israel, suffers a daily onslaught of rockets from a neighbouring terrorist-run sovereign state , Palestine, does what anyone would do to eliminate the aggressor, and Vince joins the morally bankrupt, shout “Hey you two, stop fighting!” Pure Obama infantilist position: “Why can’t folk just get along?” Because Iran is paying the rocket-firers, in a long game against Israel. (and Sunni heretics. Will the Caliphate be Sunni or Shia? No-one asks)
Equivocation (both sides are to blame) is the rubbish our spineless politicians opt for. I didn’t vote for Vince’s lot
A few weeks back the Israelis asked the US if they could use some US weaponry stored in Israel and the US gave the go ahead. The World Service latched onto that story with undisguised glee, repeating it over and over on their “news” bulletins.
(Strange, I don’t recall the World Service waxing eloquent about the source of Hamas missiles. Once Hamas graduated from the “home-made, inaccurate” Kassams that the BBC so delighted in describing, the hypocritical “journalists” fell silent.)
After that there was quite a bit of noise from various quarters about the US sponsoring Israel to acquire more Iron dome defensive missiles. I guess that could have been damage control.
And now the US has cancelled pending delivery of more hellfire missiles for the Israeli Air Force.
The message is clear, of course: Israel is allowed to defend itself as long as that doesn’t involve attacking Hamas terrorists.
Even way back in 1981 the US cancelled a pending sale of fighter jets to Israel. That was after Israel took out Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor without telling the Americans.
The West has apparently gone soft in the head from continually bowing to the God of PeeCee.
It always interests me how the media (And campaigners) make a huge song and dance about arms sales to Israel. For a while now they have been banding around a figure of £8 billion in the last year. Wow huge arms sales and all that. But that figure represents exports to Israel and not military, the figure for arms sales to Israel for the past 4 years comes in at £42 million in licences. Note a licence does not represent a sale, but rather the chance of a sale. The actual figure for 2013 was £4 million. Now lets put that in perspective , the F35 Jet we are buying costs between £125-150 million each. The Euro fighter costs £64 million, A challenger 2 tank costs £4,2 million. So in the great scheme of things we haven’t really sold them much. On the otherhand the Uk has spent over £800 million on its Watchkeeper UAV program, a program which uses the Israeli Hermes 450 as the UAV. Not only that but we also have leased from Israel 8 Hermes 450 for the past 7 years
Do you think the UK are really going to piss the Israelis off by cutting arms exports when actually they sell us over 2000% more than what we sell them.
Liberals and so called do gooders just don’t have a clue. Maybe that explains why nobody voted for them at the lcoal and EU elections and why as of next year they will become almost extinct
Cable doing politics trying to extricate libs from tories before election in the vain hope that it will squeeze some votes into the empty vessel . Would be interesting if someone were to ask about our dealings with Hamas and if all licences were above board and subject to end user clarification
presumiblemente puede producir cuestionado aquella vez llegue. Gained ugghaya estado durante negocio the tiempo parcial durante meses a traves dom private contratado por Boras, asi como adiestramiento dom béisbol, consumiendo the game of golf