UK Politics

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sharply criticized his Conservative Party colleagues, especially Foreign Secretary David Cameron, in a scathing column published in the Daily Mail Friday over consideration of imposing an arms embargo on Israel.

Johnson warned that such a move could give Hamas a victory in the war, mentioning that Hamas does not care at all about humanitarian law.

"If you want an example of the death wish of Western civilisation, I give you the current proposal from members of the British establishment that this country should ban arms sales to Israel. If you want evidence of government madness, it appears that Foreign Office lawyers are busily canvassing the idea — which has not, as far as I can tell, yet been rejected by the Foreign Secretary himself. He seems to have gone into a kind of purdah on the subject," wrote Johnson.

Although the volume of exports to Israel is very small compared to the total British arms exports (only 0.4%), Israel fears countries will join the embargo rhetoric and act upon it. The international pressure on Israel has increased following the WCK incident in which three British humanitarian workers were accidentally killed by the IDF. Recently, 600 lawyers, including the president of the British Supreme Court, signed a letter demanding that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stop arms sales to Israel and warned of complicity in war crimes and even murder, joining Foreign Minister David Cameron's criticism of Israel.