From the Liveblog of
Thursday, May 9, 2024
Asked if UK could freeze arms to Israel, Cameron says issue fundamentally different from US
UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron describes Britain’s system and scale of arms exports to Israel as completely different from those of the United States, saying the sales it licenses are relatively small and policed by strict procedures.
Responding to a question on whether Britain will follow the US after the latter warned that it would withhold weapons from Israel in case of a major offensive in Rafah, Cameron says: “There’s a very fundamental difference between the US situation and the UK situation.”
“The US is a massive state supplier of weapons to Israel… We do not have a UK Government supply of weapons to Israel, we have a number of licenses, and I think our defense exports to Israel are responsible for significantly less than 1% of their total.”
