THE head of Oxfam GB, Halima Begum, has damned the UK government for supplying arms to Israel while simultaneously providing humanitarian aid to Gaza as being ‘intellectually and morally incoherent’.
In an interview with The Guardian newspaper Begum, who has recently returned from a work trip to Israel and the occupied West Bank, said this position did not make sense.
She dismissed the claim by Tory ministers that the UK does not directly supply weapons to Israel, saying: ‘Whether you say they are components or whole weapons (being sold) is a moot point, because individual components collectively constitute these devices that are killing so many innocent people.
‘The UK needs to stop selling these arms. The government can’t simultaneously give humanitarian aid and talk about its aspirations for peace in the region, then also ship bombs – it’s intellectually and morally incoherent.’
Begum added: ‘That the law doesn’t prevent the trade seems immaterial. If you knowingly sell weapons that are being used to kill thousands of innocent children and their parents, why would you continue?’
The extent of the arming of the Zionist regime was revealed in government figures published last week.
These showed that the UK had issued 108 export licences for military components destined to Israel between October 7th last year, the date of Hamas’ military victory, and 31 May 2024.
No arms export licence application had been either rejected or revoked by Tory ministers in this period.
The biggest arms suppliers to Israel are the US followed by Germany, with the Tories doing their bit for genocide in providing components used in the planes, missiles and bombs that have so far killed at least 37,347 Palestinians, mainly women and children, in Gaza since October 7th, according to the latest figures.
As to the question why is imperialism continuing to arm the Israeli killing machine, the answer is simple.
The Israeli state was created by world imperialism to act as its guard dog in the oil-rich, strategically vital Middle East.
Its role has always been that of a military outpost of imperialism to contain and threaten the Arab masses, and a bulwark against countries like Iran that are seen as a threat to the domination of US and world imperialist interests.
In this role, Israel was armed with all the weapons it needed while being financially propped up and sustained by the US and its allies.
The fact is that the Israeli state couldn’t survive for a week without this support.
All the claims of ‘aid’ being sent by the Tories to Gaza is just an attempt to whitewash the UK’s complicity in genocide.
This air of Israeli invincibility, under the cloak of the US, has been shattered by the Palestinian resistance and the refusal of the Palestinian people to be driven out of Gaza.
Instead of defeat, Hamas and the Palestinian resistance movement is emerging stronger, delivering blows to the Israeli forces and creating a massive crisis in the right-wing regime of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
It has created a massive crisis amongst the ruling parties of the imperialist nations as tens of millions of workers, with young people in the vanguard, rise up demanding an end to arming the Israeli killing machine, and for the independent state of Palestine.
On Monday, members of Palestine Action broke into the Kent factory of Instro Precision, a company that, according to the group, makes ‘weapons sight and target acquisition products for the Israeli military’.
Kent Online news outlet quoted the group as saying it was ‘dismantling technology, machinery and parts used to produce weapons of war in a bid to prevent the export of arms to Gaza.’
The way to put an end to arming the Zionist regime is for the workers in the US, UK and EU to intervene by immediately organising general strikes to bring down the bourgeois, genocide-supporting governments, replacing them with workers’ governments and socialism. Workers’ governments will end all arms to Israel and give the Palestinian people all the material support and arms required to establish the independent Socialist State of Palestine.
This is the way forward.
