DEMONSTRATORS picketing the High Court on Wednesday, at the start of a court case against the government, demanded an immediate end to British arms exports to Israel.
The case was brought by 60-year-old Saleh Hasan, from Bethlehem, whose farm was bulldozed in 2005 to make way for the Israeli Annexation Wall running through the West Bank, even though the wall was ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004.
His solicitors, from Public Interest Lawyers, said they would argue ‘that the UK government had and continues to have clear evidence from authoritative international bodies that Israel might use equipment imported from the UK for purposes prohibited under the “consolidated criteria’’.’
The ‘criteria’ referred to government rules, established under the UK Export Control Act of 2002, forbidding licences for arms exports to countries where there is a clear risk that they might be used for internal repression ‘in violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms’.
Public Interest Lawyers said the case followed ‘the blanket refusal by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to respond to the claimant’s request for a justification of UK policy on arms-related sales to Israel.’
They added that in 2005, the same year that Saleh Hasan’s land was seized, British arms-related exports to Israel doubled.
Saleh Hasan and his lawyers called on the UK government ‘to suspend all arms-related exports to Israel until such time as Israel complies in full with its obligations under international law.’
Lawyer Phil Shiner told reporters before the case that he hoped it would ‘focus public attention on what’s happening in the occupied territories.’
He said he was confident of success in the case.
He said it was about ‘the legality of our government’s approach’ to arms exports to Israel.
He said that if the government was forced to show its hand in public over such exports, then ‘they will have to make sure in future their guidelines are met, so they are not exporting arms to Israel that are then used against civilians.’
At the picket outside the court, Jenny Najar, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, told News Line: ‘We’ve come to support the case because this man is representative of a large number of Palestinians who’ve had their land confiscated by the Israelis.
‘And this case is about Britain selling military equipment to Israel without guarantees that this will not be used for oppression of the Palestinian people.’
She added: ‘This case in particular is about transparency, to highlight Britain’s arms trade with Israel and its failure to comply with its obligations under international law.
‘The PSC has a campaign to end the arms trade with Israel and until Israel ends its illegal occupation and stops its human rights violations, we will carry on this struggle.’
She said the struggle between the Israeli occupation forces and the Palestinian people ‘isn’t an equal struggle’.
She added: ‘There are far more deaths and injuries and loss of property on the Palestinian side and yet the Israelis are given a lot more military support.
‘The Palestinians are being trapped inside Gaza and have no freedom of movement in the West Bank either.
‘There is a Palestinian student who is in his final year at Bradford University, but Israel is not allowing him to leave Gaza.
‘We had a conference where two people from Gaza were not able to come.
‘People are starving and Israel is blocking vital supplies, including electricity and water, and continuing military attacks on Gaza’s population, which isn’t being widely reported.
‘This is a legal case, but we are asking people to boycott firms that lend support for the illegal Israeli occupation.’
Michael Kalmanovitz said he was from a group opposed to the Israeli occupation called ‘Payday’.
He said about the case: ‘The legal term is internal repression, but clearly the Israeli military are killing and torturing Palestinians, impoverishing them and taking their land.
‘The Wall is a piece of racism made concrete.
‘The British government’s attitude is disgraceful.
‘We are demanding an immediate embargo of arms to Israel.’
Meanwhile, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has urged people to join a lobby of parliament on November 28 at 2.00pm to mark UN International Day for Palestine.
Calling for an end to the siege of Gaza and an end to Israeli occupation, the PSC said that since 2000, over 4,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army.
According to a recent UN report, Israel’s wall, settlements and Israeli-only roads built inside the West Bank, on occupied Palestinian land, mean that 38 per cent of the West Bank is now taken up by Israeli infrastructure.
In conjunction with an extensive system of checkpoints and roadblocks, the West Bank is now fragmented into a series of enclaves separating Palestinian communities from each other.
The PSC added: ‘The socio-economic impact has been profound: Palestinian GDP is now 20 times less than Israeli GDP, with Palestinian GDP per capita falling by 40 per cent per year since 2000 – twice as severe as the worst year of the US Great Depression in the 1930s.
‘Rather than ensuring that the numerous United Nations resolutions are implemented, including ending the Israeli occupation, the British government, alongside the United States, has been complicit in a policy of collective punishment of the Palestinian people following the democratic elections that took place in January 2006.
‘The rights of the Palestinian people to elect their own representatives have been violated, and a political and economic isolation imposed on the 1.4 million people living in Gaza, creating a humanitarian crisis.’
