On 7 May, a coalition of campaign groups including the Palestinian Youth Movement, Workers for a Free Palestine and Progressive International released a report titled Exposing UK Arms Exports to Israel (maskoffmaersk.com/reports), uncovering the extent to which the British state continues to support the Zionist genocide through the export of military equipment.
Under the threat of injunction and the resistance of those targeting weapons manufacturers, the British government finally admitted last year that there was risk of British exports being used to violate international law and commit genocide in Palestine. The government then went on to suspend just 30 of its 350 export licences for arms to Israel. However, this legislation only restricted movement of goods that it deemed could be used to infringe upon international law, a definition chosen by the government itself, rather than an exterior body. This allowed for the creation of a loophole, the ‘F35 carve out’, which allows for parts for F-35 fighter jets to continue to reach Israel indirectly, by travelling through other countries first.
The Report found no decrease in the shipment of aircraft parts to Israel since the September 2024 restrictions, and over 100 shipments have taken place since then, moving from RAF Marham in Norfolk, ‘the home of the F-35’, through Heathrow to US military bases and onwards to Israel. Lockheed Martin, whose British offices are near Plymouth, has been the registered sender for each of the shipments. The company is the world’s largest military contractor, and recorded its highest ever revenue in 2024.
15% of F-35 components are made in Britain, including some of the most important features like the electronics and laser systems. F-35s have been crucial to Israel’s destruction of Gaza due to their ability to drop multi-ton bombs. In Gaza, where there is no air defence to counter Israeli strikes, the IDF has adapted F-35s to carry over 8,000kg of munitions, a modification they call ‘beast mode’. These jets, made with British parts, are the same jets that have been responsible for attacks in supposed ‘safe zones’ like Khan Younis, and the 18 March attack on Gaza that breached the ceasefire, killing 436 Palestinians.
The British government has justified its exemption by claiming that the ‘F35 carve out’ is integral to ‘its strategic role in NATO and wider implications for international peace and security’. For Britain, this means sustaining Israel as an imperialist outpost in order to defend western economic interests in the Middle East.
The Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Al-Haq have taken the British government to High Court over its history of arms exports to Israel. After almost a year, the long-awaited four day court case began on 13 May, just a week after the Report was released. GLAN and Al-Haq rightly assert that the British state is breaking both domestic and international law by continuing to supply F-35 parts to Israel.
As well as F-35 parts, the Report found evidence that 8,630 individual munitions have been received by Israel from Britain since the suspensions made last September. The Report finds that between October 2023 and March 2025, Britain has sent at least £1,156,151 worth of military goods to Israel. The Israeli Tax Authority has recorded that these imports include bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines and missiles, suggesting that there may be even more illegal shipments yet to be uncovered.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy, shortly after the September suspensions, said that what Britain sends to Israel is ‘defensive in nature’ and ‘not what we describe routinely as arms’. However, the categorisation of imports by the Israeli government shows that what they are receiving from Britain is exactly what should be classified as ‘arms’. Moreover, supplying parts for the world’s most lethal fighter jet can hardly be described as ‘defensive’. In the same speech, Lammy insisted that Britain must continue to support Israel by exporting these ‘defensive’ products to ‘one of our closest allies’. It is clear that the Labour Party’s loyalties lie with British imperialism.
The majority of mainstream media in Britain has stayed silent on the continued arms exports to Israel which are revealed in entirely publicly available data used by the Report. The Guardian, supposedly an investigative news outlet, reported on the issue only after the Report’s publication, arguing that Britain’s continued exports are an effort to ‘avoid offending Trump’, deliberately concealing the British state’s own imperialist interests in the Middle East. By refusing to report on the Labour government’s deception of the public, mainstream media in Britain reinforces the position of the Zionist state.
In late April 2025, dockworkers and pro-Palestine groups in Morocco protested against the arrival of Maersk ships containing F-35 parts into Tangier and Casablanca ports, en route to Haifa, the third largest city within the 1948 borders of the Israeli state. Across the Strait of Gibraltar, similar protests were held in Algericas, and a Nexoe Maersk ship carrying the very same aircraft parts was successfully delayed by French protesters and dockworkers in Fos-sur-Mer port.
In the face of state obfuscation, corporate profiteering, and media complicity, the truth about Britain’s role in arming the Israeli apartheid state has become even clearer due to the tireless efforts of dedicated organisations, legal advocates and international solidarity movements. From the courts to the ports, the resistance is mounting, and as the genocide in Gaza persists with British-made components at its core, the struggle must focus its efforts on challenging the imperialist state, and destroying the war machine here in Britain.
Rúibín Breathnach
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 306 June/July 2025
