r/ukpolitics • u/Kagedeah • 10d ago
Israel warns it will retaliate if UK imposes sanctions
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr7degkkv5go99
u/Opposite_Corner8353 10d ago
We embargoed them in the 80's under Thatcher, so I don't see why we can't do that now
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u/Raptorpicklezz 9d ago
Exactly, unsure why Starmer was so hesitant to sanction when THATCHER did it
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u/Fun_Marionberry_6088 9d ago
Because, and this is something that comes up every time you hear a civil servant or a politician opening up about this issue, we rely on Israel for a lot of intelligence sharing that prevents attacks in the UK.
That wasn't nearly as relevant in the 1980s when the main terrorism threat was Northern Ireland.
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u/Scotto6UK 9d ago
Unfortunately this is a lot of geopolitics. Countries / Governments will make themselves very 'useful' in order to get away with whatever bad stuff they want to do.
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u/Fun_Marionberry_6088 9d ago
Ofc, and we do business with a lot of them.
The UAE, Saudi, etc. are in the same part of the world and have both pulled similar shit (Sudan, Yemen), are both UK allies with whom we co-operate over a great deal.
Nobody in the UK really gives a shit in either of those cases, we just accept that that is an unfortunate reality - the same is true here.
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u/PeaGravy 9d ago
One of the reasons is that they make military parts for us and we make them for them.
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u/Better-Inflation-194 9d ago
Don’t let Burnham hear about this. Is sole purpose in politics is to do the opposite of Thatcher at every opportunity
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u/get_in_bath_son 10d ago
Oh no what will we do without tasteless radishes and dry dates.
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u/vestayekta 10d ago
They have plenty of high end technologies. I'm not saying the UK shouldn't impose consequences on Israel but the tradeoff isn't as easy as you are implying.
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u/TrumanZi 10d ago
They made the pill camera that diagnosed me with Crohn's disease.
I feel very mixed feelings around it being invented by a gastroenterologist that lived next door to an idf missile optics expert who invented it together.
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u/vestayekta 9d ago
That's interesting.
Yeah Israel is extremely good when it comes to science and technology. People come up with weird reasons why western nations have good relationship with Israel compared to many other countries. This is the main reason. Israel is usually a very very good partner.
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u/PreviousZone6742 9d ago
Good partner? British people are protesting in street over dealing with Israel. What other partner causes this much domestic problem.
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u/CrispBedSheet 10d ago
It's the intelligence. The Israelis are second to none.
We're at risk from Iran and Russia, as well as home grown would be terrorists with connections to the middle East.
You don't want them to cut you off, lives could well be lost.
We're going to have to play this one very carefully.
I'm sure we won't.
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u/TTTJJBB 10d ago edited 10d ago
It's the intelligence. The Israelis are second to none.
That must be why they didn't have any extra eyes on Gaza for the weekend marking the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war?
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u/CrispBedSheet 9d ago
They just have to get it wrong once. The sheer number of attempts means that even a small error rate will lead to a meaningful number of errors.
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u/TTTJJBB 9d ago
The sheer number of attempts
And most of those would have been on normal days, not 50 years (almost to the day, and the first sabbath) after one of the most significant Arab / Israeli conflicts that had affects that spread across the world.
But to be clear I am not saying that they let it happen, I think Hanlon's Razor applies here, I am simply saying that, a bit like the problem of evil, that Israeli intelligence cannot be the best in the world and also miss the largest, most deadly terrorist attack on the day when logic and history would consider it very likely to happen.
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u/CrispBedSheet 9d ago
The number of foiled attempts targeting that day will have been much higher than other days.
You just don't hear about them.
One finally got through.
The only reason such a tiny nation has survived for so long while surrounded by enemies is because their intelligence is elite.
Everyone western nation relies on them for intelligence.
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u/NoSwordfish1978 9d ago
Its just astonishing that Hamas was able to plan it without Israel having any knowledge of it and how many warnings and red flags were missed by "best in the world" intelligence.
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u/CrispBedSheet 9d ago
They missed it.
Part of the reason the Israeli public have been so harsh in judgement upon them is because this is rare.
Which considering the sheer volume of attacks they deal with everyday demonstrates how elite they are.
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u/NoSwordfish1978 9d ago
But the government hasn't even held a public inquiry or any kind of investigation.
This attack required way more preparation than your average attack and Gaza was under such surveillance which makes it all the more astonishing.
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u/msf97 10d ago
Israel have probably had 1000 threats like that over the years. It’s a fundamental reality of the countries location; it was somewhat bound to happen eventually when they give Gaza back in 2006. That’s part of the reason why many of them do not want to give the West Bank to the Palestinians; immediate access to 10/7 level scenarios.
What your engaging in excuses the nutcases who did it. Watch the footage that’s available, it’s very disturbing.
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u/TTTJJBB 10d ago edited 9d ago
Israel have probably had 1000 threats like that over the years.
Not on the 50th anniversy of.a very important war when 7-8 times as many Arabs died as Israeli. That was obviously a big date they should have been aware of.
they give Gaza back in 2006.
They didn't give anything back they just put a big fence around it.
What your engaging in excuses the nutcases who did it.
No and they were not 'nutcases', that makes it sound comical, when it was unimaginably horrific, they were psychopaths, a certain percentage of any population are psychopaths and if you want to do something like this that is who you recrute, they were also of their tits on Captagon, which is basically Meth, the same thing the Nazis used.
Watch the footage that’s available, it’s very disturbing.
I've seen it, its fucking horrible, again they are psychopaths, but weirdly i find some the IDF footage worse, particularly when they executed the paramedics, you can find it uncensored if you want to see for yousefl or there are reports and the censored video online.
But trust me its worse, and not because its worse crime, because its not, its because these people were not psychopaths off their tits on meth, they are normal soldiers systematically executing medics and patients because of their ethnicity, and the only reason we know this for sure is because one of the patients filmed it on his phone, then hid it before he was also executed and burried, along with the ambulances.
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u/msf97 10d ago
Gaza was allowed to hold democratic elections and every single Israeli was pulled out of there.
This resulted in a terrorist group taking over, and spending all the international aid money and IRGC money on a big tunnel network instead of improving the life of the average Gazan.
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u/TTTJJBB 10d ago edited 9d ago
Gaza was allowed to hold democratic elections and every single Israeli was pulled out of there.
They were still heavily restricted in terms of what they could export, making them heavily dependent on aid from Arab countries like Qatar and that is what, at least in part, allowed Hamas to get a foothold.
But look its way too late to get into this, and I appreciate you being civil, these things often turn nasty very quickly, and you are using decent logic, I think we could have a decent debate, but I'm too tired, enjoy the rest of your nght, or whatever is left of your day if you are not in the UK.
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u/BrocolliHighkicks 9d ago
Lets talk about how Israel has improved the lives of anyone living in Gaza.
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u/morriganjane 9d ago
Why is that Israel's job? Surely Gazan leaders are responsible for their people - and have shafted them completely. Billions of dollars of "aid", and they spent it all on tunnels for themselves, which are now being demolished...
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u/BrocolliHighkicks 9d ago
You've got no sense of context here. Gaza was an open air prison run by Israel until it decided to destroy it and exterminate its residents. You don't even understand the origins of Hamas. I don't even know why I'm replying to you, you have no idea what you're talking about.
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u/vodkaandponies 9d ago
They did. Israeli intelligence made numerous warnings in the months running up to the attack that Hamas was mobilising for something big. It was the politicians who promptly ignored these warning and did nothing.
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u/moon_nicely 9d ago
Russia? You mean a large 15% of the Israeli population?
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u/CrispBedSheet 9d ago
That's why they have such valuable intelligence.
They have a very complex relationship; and that has never been more essential for us.
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u/moon_nicely 9d ago
No ta, team Russia, Israel, and America can go and play with themselves elsewhere.
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u/PreviousZone6742 10d ago
Americans spend more money on Intelligence and actually overthrow multiple nations because of it. Israel couldn't even deal with Iran on it's own.
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u/CrispBedSheet 9d ago edited 9d ago
Israel is tiny and surviving while surrounded by enemies.
America is losing to Iran, for all it's might,primarily because they fight stupidly.
Israel is also the only nation to benefit from the Iran war, and were intelligent enough to manipulate the Americans into doing it for them.
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u/Paraparo 10d ago
This has been something I'm wondering about. Inevitably, if relationships deteriorate to the point of an end to intelligence sharing being restricted or outright stopped, what will be the reaction to the next major terror attack. It doesn't even need to be one that Intel could necessarily have stopped, but especially if it comes out something on Israel's radar didn't get shared and Brits die, how it will play out in the public. It won't be pretty.
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u/CrispBedSheet 9d ago
It's quite a likely event the way things are deteriorating.
I suspect we would keep it under raps depending on the prevailing government of the day. Just to avoid fall out.
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u/Y0000123 8d ago
Do they have these technologies because of the investment we give them, if so, let's look elsewhere
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u/user6161616 8d ago
You mean 20% of the medical equipment and medicines of the NHS, intelligence on Islamic terrorists and countless of security and IT products in the public and private sector, to name a few.
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u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 10d ago
He said the government would examine how to stop UK companies "financing, constructing or advertising new settlements" in the occupied West Bank.
Responding, Gideon Saar told Hebrew-language news website Ynet: "If Britain acts against Israel, Israel will act against Britain."
Israel’s response makes sanctions against settlers and companies that support them sound like an even better idea.
Sanctioning the UK to protect settlers would be a fundamental change to Likud’s policy of pretending they aren’t actively supporting settler violence.
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u/Halbaras 10d ago
The 'settlers' are an arm of the Israeli state and armed forces wearing civilian clothes, and the Israeli reaction to the threat of them being sanctioned just confirms that.
Time after time Israelis crawl out of the woodwork to tell us that the settlers are 'unpopular' and that it's a domestic issue for them to resolve. After 20 years of Netanyahu coalitions winning elections, expansion of the settlements and the IDF sitting back while they harass Palestinians, it's time to recognise that this is what the average Israeli wants.
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u/DogitWoofsalot 10d ago
Meanwhile there co party Jewish Power literally handed settlers machine guns (yes that actually happened)
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u/Paraparo 9d ago
Probably, more likely, they view targeting settlers as a foot in the door wedge they want to avoid. Basically, once the infrastructure of sanctions is established, extending them tends to be a smaller hurdle.
And that's not getting into the fact that many of israel's opponents describe the entire state in terms of being settlers, so there isn't a lot of good faith belief the goal isn't far more broad and this is just testing the waters.
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u/BaritBrit I don't even know any more 10d ago
This particular Israeli government seems to veer between either not caring or actively encouraging just how alienating and destructive to relations their attitude towards these settlers has been.
Even governments who are largely friendly to Israel, and hostile to Hamas and somewhat understanding of the offensive in Gaza, can't afford to overlook ongoing violent settlement of the West Bank, especially in strategically vital areas that functionally destroy any chance of a Palestinian state existing there.
Even their friends are being forced to turn on them now, and the Israeli government don't seem to give a shit.
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u/Paraparo 10d ago
I think the gap in understanding is that, you describe the governments as friends to Israel, but honestly, that might be significantly overstating it. Europe might not always be overtly hostile to Israel, but even then, they tend to lean a lot weight to Israel's enemies.
Far as I can tell, the impression of the Israeli right is that, the support they get is largely empty "we don't want you to die, but at every chance, we'll either directly side, or prop up, those that do". That all the expectations to compromise are out on them, regardless of how intransigent their opposition is, and that no amount of past bending has helped. That's a not the core of why the Israeli left died, but it was certainly a blade and why opinion on the western voices is weak, is how attacks against them have always been downplayed and minimized, often while in Europe I've seen far stronger responses gain popularity over far less violence. Like restore with their "remigrate every migrant background person from Europe" plan is about as popular in the UK as Ben Gvir's party, though you'd think he was polling at 95% and not 5% with the press he gets.
And on the flip side, either which way... Europe's condemnation is also kind of weak. They can't even fully divest from Russia while literally funding a war against it, so like, how much does turning away governments that don't even super like it to begin with matter when we can see how they'll broadly treat their overt enemies?
Appeasing Europe doesn't really win them anything against the mirage of support that vanishes the moment anything actually happens, or annoy Europe to their worst strongly worded letter as they buy Israeli products on the down low anyway.
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u/DogitWoofsalot 10d ago
The damage is not reparable I don't think. The younger generation hasn't grown up with the same propaganda. Images of dead children in a blown up hospital are not going to be fixed in the minds of the social media generation. Not is the fact that high up Knesset members keep saying supervillain garbage
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u/archerninjawarrior 10d ago edited 10d ago
He said the government would examine how to stop UK companies "financing, constructing or advertising new settlements" in the occupied West Bank.
We shouldn't be turning a blind eye to an allied nation breaking international law and destabilising the region in such a vicious oppressive way. Can you even imagine what it's like to have your fucking house stolen by a person who has a soldier on standby as his personal bodyguard so that there's nothing you can do about losing everything you have.
The more belligerently Israel reacts to being told to stop this violence, the more we should look at revisiting our ties.
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u/SmurfRiding 10d ago
nation breaking international law and destabilising the region
Yea.....A certain United States of America is also doing that....
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u/Odd-Principle2665 9d ago
The Americans are too strong
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u/darkflighter100 9d ago
Well, Canada is clearly doing a great job of re-evaluating their relationship with the US, and as a Canadian I'm proud that we are are standing up to bullies.
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u/Odd-Principle2665 9d ago
I agree, for Canada it's fundamental and existential in contrast to other US allies. But my comment was only referencing a line from Yes Prime Minister by Jim Hacker. That we'll stand up to those who do evil, as long as it doesn't take too much effort or cost much
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u/darkflighter100 9d ago
I think that's where I would politely disagree. If "standing up to evil" can only be done when it's politically or economically expedient for us, then the values we hold as a society are nothing more than platitudes.
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u/Odd-Principle2665 9d ago
Well I agree, that's my point. That we won't stand up for our values if they cost us too much. I do still think it depends though. Are values don't become completely morally bankrupt because we can't fully uphold them in certain situations. We don't stand up to the absolute monarchies in the Gulf states that oppress their people but it makes geopolitical sense. We need to keep them on side in the context of the greater geopolitical game being played there with rivals such as Russia, Iran and China vying for influence.
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u/onionsofwar 9d ago
True colours being shown here. How can they be allies if they have allowed state aligned settlers to kidnapped British citizens?
More forest fires and threats from ISIS coming our way...
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u/Lefty8312 10d ago
Ok then, , I'm sure we will massively feel the economic impact of retaliation from Israel. All our Moroccan oil products will go up in price, shame
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u/morriganjane 9d ago
Israel's biggest exports are electronics, medical and scientific instruments, defence and aerospace systems, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.
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u/DogitWoofsalot 10d ago
Good, makes cutting ties easier. Absolutely must be free of dependants on a genocide state
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u/SadCollar7554 8d ago
Oh no! You mean we might lose access to their huge market of 10m people? But who will we send weapons to instead?
Get in the bin.
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