Steve Witherden, MP for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, held a Parliamentary debate on British arms sales to Israel (Image: Parliament TV)
A WELSH Labour MP has called on the UK Government to suspend all arms sales to Israel to ensure that the UK is not “complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza”.
Steve Witherden, MP for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, held a Parliamentary debate on British arms sales to Israel on Monday evening, calling on the UK Government to suspend all arms exports.
During the debate, Witherden described Gaza as a “slaughterhouse” and said that the UK Government is still letting the “weapons flow” into Israel despite the country’s genocidal acts on Gaza.
Witherden also highlighted the lack of transparency surrounding the true extent of UK military exports to Israel, particularly regarding the supply of components for the F-35 fighter jet programme, and urged ministers to outline the specific conditions that would trigger a halt to further exports.
“The Government have claimed that there are red lines that would trigger a halt to exports, but Gaza is already a slaughterhouse,” Witherden said.
“Children are emaciated or dying of hunger, hospitals have been intentionally destroyed and Israel’s leaders vow to wipe out Gaza, and still the weapons flow, so finally, Minister, where is our red line?”
The Labour MP added: “I call on this Government to suspend all arms exports to Israel, to ensure that no British-made weapons are used in Israel’s brutal plans to annex, starve and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Irish lawmakers during the vote on May 28, 2025. Source: Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign/X
On May 28, center-right lawmakers voted down a Sinn Féin proposal to limit the sale of Israeli bonds used to finance the genocide in Gaza
On May 28, representatives of conservative parties Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, part of the current Irish government, voted down a proposal brought forward by Sinn Féin that would have granted the Minister for Finance the authority to restrict the sale of Israeli bonds. The bill was defeated by a margin of 87 to 75, despite support from opposition parties and independent parliamentarians who vote with the government on other issues.
The debate took place in the context of a broader campaign challenging the role of the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) in facilitating the sale of Israeli bonds within European financial markets. Under EU law, such bonds cannot be circulated without approval from a central bank in the Union. Activists argue that the CBI’s approval of these bonds – which took place even after the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza – makes Ireland complicit in violations of international law, despite statements by government officials expressing support for the Palestinian cause.
According to earlier reports, by the beginning of this year, Israel had raised nearly USD 19.5 billion through the sale of such bonds. Of this amount, close to USD 4.5 billion was raised with the help of major European players such as BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank, which helped coordinate and recommend bond sales to investors. Israeli officials have made no effort to conceal the planned usage of the funds that were collected. “Israel doesn’t hide the purpose of these bonds,” Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said ahead of the vote. “They emphasize, quote, ‘the crucial role of Israel bonds during this time of conflict and war.’ Israel openly invites people to invest in genocide.”
The actions of the government and the CBI greatly contrast with the will of the Irish public, which has demonstrated strong support for Palestine. “Allowing the Irish Central Bank to continue to deal in Israeli war bonds is an endorsement of genocide. It makes Ireland, in my view, complicit,” McDonald said in another statement. “It flies in the face of the ordinary people of Ireland who have marched, protested, campaigned and, with everything they have, stood up for the right of the Palestinians to live and live free.”
Widespread grassroots pressure and mass mobilizations has contributed to the country’s formal recognition of the State of Palestine in May 2024. Opposition parties argue that this public sentiment makes the gravity of the government’s inaction even worse.“There is something very perverse about saying to a people faced with genocide that you recognize them, that you stand with them, while at the same time playing a big part in funding the very weapons that are being used to slaughter their children,” McDonald noted.
Both the government and CBI leadership have argued that blocking the sale of Israeli bonds would be legally impossible. CBI head Gabriel Makhlouf defended the approval process, claiming that the bond prospectus in question met relevant criteria of “completeness, comprehensibility and consistency.” However, activists, including those from the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, have provided detailed evidence that Israel’s claims within the approval process obscure the bonds’ direct links to the genocide. The campaign also warned that CBI’s role in this matter represents a breach of both domestic and international law, including the Genocide Convention.
“Those who finance genocide under the mantra ‘it’s only business’ are complicit in genocide,” said David Landy of Jews for Palestine – Ireland. “By selling Israeli war bonds, the CBI is implicating all of us, all Irish people, in Israel’s war crimes.”
Palestinians carry boxes containing food and humanitarian aid packages delivered by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-backed organisation approved by Israel, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, May 27, 2025
THERE have been 600 days of bombing. 600 days of starvation. 600 days of crimes against humanity.
With these words, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn demanded today that the British government end its complicity in Israel’s assault on Gaza as the genocide reached the sombre milestone of 600 days.
Mr Corbyn, independent MP for Islington North, asked: “How many more days of genocide until our government ends arms sales to Israel?
“The world could have stopped this,” he insisted. “Instead, our political leaders have allowed Israel to act with total impunity.
“The Israeli government continues to commit war crimes because it knows it can — and until our government ends its military co-operation, it will remain shamefully complicit.”
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAVote For Genocide Vote Labour.
Ehud Olmert in May 2025. His opinion piece in Haaretz says the Israeli government’s war has ‘no chances of success’. Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP
Leader from 2006 to 2009 says Palestinian victims are at ‘monstrous proportions’ and Netanyahu heads a ‘criminal gang’
The former prime minister of Israel Ehud Olmert has said Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza, and that “thousands of innocent Palestinians are being killed, as well as many Israeli soldiers”.
Olmert, who was the 12th prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, wrote in an opinion piece for the Israeli newspaper and website Haaretz that “the government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose, without goals or clear planning and with no chances of success”.
He added: “Never since its establishment has the state of Israel waged such a war … The criminal gang headed by Benjamin Netanyahu has set a precedent without equal in Israel’s history in this area, too.
The former Israeli PM and former member of Likud, the same party as Netanyahu, wrote that the “pointless victims among the Palestinian population” were reaching “monstrous proportions” in recent weeks.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Palestinians carry boxes containing food and humanitarian aid packages delivered by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-backed organisation approved by Israel, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, May 27, 2025
