Israel Debate Opens Fresh Rift in Sunak’s Fractious Cabinet

Alex Wickham
·5 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- The Israeli drone strike in Gaza that killed seven aid workers — including three Britons — is exposing new fissures in Rishi Sunak’s cabinet as pressure mounts on the UK prime minister to suspend arms sales to Tel Aviv.

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Sunak and his foreign secretary, David Cameron, are stuck between opposing Tory factions who either want to stop future defense exports to Israel or show it continued support, according to ministers, officials and members of Parliament who requested anonymity discussing internal disputes. At least three Cabinet ministers are opposed to any suspension of arms sales, people familiar with their thinking said.

The Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Office declined to comment on Cabinet disagreements over the issue. Government officials say Sunak and Cameron have worked in lock-step with each other, as well as with Washington, on efforts to pressure Israel to pause hostilities.

The episode is the latest example of how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war to eliminate the Hamas leadership in Gaza — and its mounting civilian death toll — is disrupting domestic politics for some of its closest supporters. Sunak’s Conservative Party, which was largely united in support of Israel’s right to respond after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, is now facing the sort of infighting that’s beset Keir Starmer’s opposition Labour on the war.

Conservative tensions boiled over on Thursday, when former Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan accused a number of pro-Israel Tories of “exercising the interests of another country.” A Conservative Party spokesman said later said that Duncan, who is no longer an MP, had been placed under investigation for his comments.

While public Tory feuding has become a feature of Westminster politics in recent years, this dispute is particularly fraught because of the prominent role of Cameron, a former prime minister whom Sunak brought back in a shock reshuffle in November. Now an unelected peer in the House of Lords, he has emerged as one of the most-high-profile Western officials expressing concern about the human cost of Israel’s actions in Gaza, which have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

For weeks, Cameron has been anticipating legal advice that would allow him to make a judgment on whether Israel was still in compliance with international humanitarian law. A decision against Israel would lead to Britain suspending licenses allowing companies to export arms to the country, something the Foreign Office has actively been considering, Bloomberg reported in February.

Britain has “no choice” but to suspend arms sales to Israel because export licenses require recipients to heed international law, Alicia Kearns, a Conservative who chairs Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told BBC radio on Friday.

While that would be largely symbolic — Defense Ministry figures show arms exports to the country totaled £42 million ($53 million) in 2022 — it would send a political message to Israel from a key Western ally. US President Joe Biden told Netanyahu in a call on Thursday that US support for Israel would depend on new efforts by the country to protect civilians.

Britain backed a recent UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, while the US abstained, allowing the measure to go through. Sunak this week called the situation in Gaza “increasingly intolerable.”

The UK Foreign Office’s legal advice has been heading toward a tougher view on Israel since Cameron judged in December that there was no “clear risk” of a “serious breach” of international law, people familiar with the matter said. Departmental officials have been expecting Cameron to soon decide — and publicly state — that it’s plausible Israel was now in violation, the people said.

Although Cameron told reporters on March 8 that he would receive new legal advice “in the coming days,” he’s since provided no updates. A person close to the foreign secretary said he misspoke about the time frame, adding there has been no change in Cameron’s view. On Thursday, the foreign secretary refused to discuss Israel in a BBC interview on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Brussels.

On Friday, Treasury Minister Gareth Davies told Sky News that the UK has a “longstanding convention” of not publishing its “private” legal advice, but that the process is “very robust” and ministers take action based on it.

Some senior Cabinet ministers and Downing Street advisers, as well as dozens of Tory MPs, oppose the UK making a judgment that Israel might not be complying with international law. They don’t want to stop arms exports to the country while it’s waging a war against Hamas, which the UK, like the US, considers a terrorist organization.

Still, political pressure has increased in the wake of the drone strike on Monday that killed World Central Kitchen workers delivering food to displaced Palestinians. Cameron’s former national security adviser, Peter Ricketts, was among prominent ex-government officials to suggest in recent days that exports should be stopped.

The issue is being compounded by Sunak’s own political weakness, as the Conservatives trail far behind Labour in public opinion ahead of an election expected later this year. Some Tory officials are concerned that a strong line against Israel could convince some MPs to support a change of leader, with pro-Israel backbenchers, such as former Home Secretary — and possible Sunak leadership rival — Suella Braverman urging the government to maintain support for Tel Aviv.

But Sunak may find calls for action increasingly hard to ignore. On Wednesday, some 600 lawyers and academics, including three former Supreme Court justices, signed a letter warning Britain was in breach of international law by continuing to arm Israel.

Britain’s international obligations “require” it to “suspend the provision of weapons and weapons systems to the government of Israel,” they wrote.

--With assistance from Alberto Nardelli and Isabella Ward.

(Updates with comment from Kearns, Davies, starting in eighth paragraph.)

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