For Britain, Israel is mostly a strategic liability – but a very close ally in stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
Now that Israel is locked in a war with Iran and Britain is rushing to send a handful of RAF jets to the region, that relationship needs careful managing.
The UK cannot afford to offer Israel unnecessary help and suffer reputation guilt by association with its campaign in Gaza – there is plenty for the RAF to do aside from that.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has said that the aircraft may be used to defend the UK’s allies – in other words, shoot down Iranian missiles heading to Tel Aviv.
Helping Israel stop the erratic and malevolent Iranian regime from making the A Bomb is smart. Being seen to do so, and protecting Israel against the consequences, is not.
Iran has threatened to attack any US ally that defends Israel. The US has already helped shoot down ballistic missiles fired by Tehran in retaliation for the ongoing, and widespread, Israeli attacks on its air defences, missile systems, military leadership and nuclear programme.
The US has a vast array of military assets very close to Iran that are vulnerable to attack across the Persian (Arabian) Gulf with air force and navy bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman.
As a Nato member, the UK joining the defence of these locations would be good politics and part of the UK’s obligations to the alliance under the Article 5 mutual defence agreement.
But Reeves was opaque over what the RAF’s handful of aircraft, likely based out of Akrotiri in Cyrus, would be doing.
Asked whether the UK would come to Israel’s aid if asked, the chancellor told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “We have, in the past, supported Israel when there have been missiles coming in.
“I’m not going to comment on what might happen in the future, but so far, we haven’t been involved, and we’re sending in assets to both protect ourselves and also potentially to support our allies.”
Let’s be very clear. Israel is prosecuting a campaign against the population of Gaza with the intent, according to Israeli cabinet ministers, to empty the enclave of 2.5 million people. It is simultaneously campaigning on the West Bank, illegally taking land from Palestinians there, setting up colonies, and imposing a system of grand apartheid on the non-Jewish population.
The UK has attracted widespread criticism for its reluctant and tardy criticism of these operations and continues to operate a spy plane over Gaza while supplying small amounts of military equipment to Israel. This is a very bad look, a moral failure that could lead to blowback in the form of violence against the UK.
In April last year, the former head of MI6, Sir Alex Younger, told a Commons committee: “You cannot pretend that the international environment, our foreign policy or the way in which the west is perceived are not significant drivers of all of this”.
