UK Suspends Arms Exports Licenses to Israel, Norway Considers Economic Divestment

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that the UK's decision to suspend export licenses for 30 contracts to deliver defense equipment to Israel is "shameful" and gives comfort to terrorists who are attacking a fellow democracy.

Hamas is “a genocidal terrorist organization that savagely murdered 1,200 people on October 7, including 14 British citizens,” Netanyahu wrote in an English-language post on X. “Israel is pursuing a just war with just means, taking unprecedented measures to keep civilians out of harm’s way and comporting fully with international law.”

“Just as Britain’s heroic stand against the Nazis is seen today as having been vital in defending our common civilization, so too will history judge Israel’s stand against Hamas and Iran’s axis of terror... With or without British arms, Israel will win this war and secure our common future,” Netanyahu added.

These statements came in response to Monday's announcement by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, that the Labor-dominated governing coalition in London had decided to suspend the export licenses for 30 contracts British defense firms had with Israel. The reason he gave was concerns the UK government has that these defense exports could be used by the IDF to carry out violations of international human rights law as it conducts its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“This is not a blanket ban,” Lammy insisted while making the announcement in Parliament. “this is not an arms embargo. It targets... approximately 350 licenses to Israel in total for items which could be used in the current conflict in Gaza.”

“It is with regret that I inform the House today [that] the assessment I have received leaves me unable to conclude anything other than that for certain UK arms exports to Israel, there does exist a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law,” he added. He listed some of the items of concern including “important components which go into military aircraft, including fighter aircraft, helicopters, and drones, as well as items which facilitate ground targeting,” he added.

However, he also said that there was “no doubt that Hamas pays not the slightest heed to international humanitarian law and endangers civilians by embedding itself in the tightly concentrated civilian population and in civilian infrastructure. There is no equivalence between Hamas terrorists and Israel’s democratic government.”

He pointed out that the majority of contracts British companies have to supply defense equipment to the IDF would remain untouched, including the supply of spare parts and tools to service Israel's F-35 aircraft. The UK also supplies these parts and tools to 20 other countries worldwide that fly the f_35, and Lammy said that an interruption in these supplies could be damaging to the security of many of Britain's allies in NATO.

In related news, the Council on Ethics for Norway's $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, sent a letter to the Finance Ministry on August 30th which included some new guidelines. The guidelines included an expanded definition of unethical corporate behavior that some analysts say will make it necessary for the fund to divest from companies that do business with and in Israel, specifically if they are suppliers to the IDF and/or if they operate in Judea and Samaria.

"The Council on Ethics believes the ethical guidelines provide a basis for excluding a few more companies from the Government Pension Fund Global in addition to those already excluded," the group wrote in the letter.

The recommendations of the Council are taken seriously by the relevant authorities in Norway, but they are not always followed, and there are other factors these authorities take into consideration when making investment decisions.

Some of the companies whose shares could be sold off under the new guidelines include American defense giants RTX and General Dynamics, as well as General Electric. Critics charge that the supply of defense equipment by these companies to the IDF makes them complicit in violations of international humanitarian law.

The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund also has around $1.41 billion invested directly in Israel, with holdings in 77 different companies involved in different fields including real estate, banks, energy and telecommunications.

The new guidelines issued by the Council were prompted in part by a ruling earlier this year by the International Court of Justice in the Hague, which said "the occupation itself, Israel's settlement policy and the way Israel uses the natural resources in the areas are in conflict with international law."

Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund has previously divested from nine companies that operated in Judea and Samaria.