On Friday, Mark Smith, the head of the Africa Programmes and Expertise Department and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), resigned from his post, writing a letter titled “Foreign Office complicity in war crimes.”
“It is with sadness that I resign after a long career in the diplomatic service,” he wrote, “However, I can no longer carry out my duties in the knowledge that this department may be complicit in war crimes.”
Britain and the United States, alongside Germany and Italy, have been the main suppliers of weaponry to the Israeli regime, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip since it launched its genocidal war against the densely-populated Palestinian enclave in early October.
London is facing domestic pressure to halt its arms sales to Israel but has not changed its course in militarily supporting the occupying entity.
“Each day we witness clear and unquestionable examples of War Crimes and breaches of International Humanitarian Law in Gaza perpetrated by … Israel,” Smith continued.
The senior British diplomat also emphasized how senior members of the Israeli cabinet and military “have expressed open genocidal intent, Israeli soldiers take videos, deliberately burning, destroying, and looting civilian property and openly admit to the rape and torture of prisoners.”
Smith noted that killing tens of thousands of people and wounding more than a hundred thousand others plus internally displacing over 80 percent of the whole civilian population of Gaza “are war crimes.”
“There is no justification for the UK’s continued arms sales to Israel yet somehow it continues,” he stressed.
The top diplomat also said that he had tried to raise his concerns while he was at the Foreign Office, including through “an official whistle-blowing investigation” but all to no avail.
Government officials have repeatedly emphasized in recent months that UK defense exports to Israel were very small. Last year, the then Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said such exports were “just £42m ($53m) last year.”
Anti-arms campaigners, however, say the true figure could be much higher because the items sold under opaque open licenses keep the value of arms and their quantities secret.
MP/PressTV
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