posted a copy of its contents on the social media platform X<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\nAccording to the email, his role was \u201cSecond Secretary Counter Terrorism\u201d – understood to be a relatively junior rank, but one in which he described himself as \u201ca subject matter expert in the domain of arms sales policy\u201d after \u201ca long career in the diplomatic service\u201d.<\/p>\n
His email continued: \u201cMinisters claim that the UK has one of the most \u2018robust and transparent\u2019 arms export licensing regimes in the world, however this is the opposite of the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a fully cleared officer raising serious concerns of illegality in this Department, to be disregarded in this way is deeply troubling. It is my duty as a public servant to raise this.\u201d<\/p>\n
A source close to Mr Smith said his email was limited to internal government addressees and he did not resign publicly.<\/p>\n
Since the story has emerged in public, Mr Smith has issued a statement calling on the government to \u201clisten to the concerns\u201d of civil servants, adding that he was previously the lead author of the central assessment governing the legality of UK arms sales in the Middle East and North Africa Directorate.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIt was my job to gather all relevant information regarding civilian casualties, international law compliance as well as assess the commitment and capabilities of the countries in question.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo export arms to any nation, the UK must be satisfied that the recipient nation has in place robust procedures to avoid civilian casualties and to minimize harm to civilian life. It is impossible to argue that Israel is doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have written to the Foreign Secretary informing him of my resignation and urging him to urgently review the UK approach to the situation in Gaza. I sincerely hope that he will listen to the concerns of Civil Servants on this issue and make the necessary changes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since 2008, the UK has granted licenses for weapons exports to Israel worth \u00a3574m ($727m) in total, according to the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). <\/p>\n
The UK government has recently played down the scale of the supply, calling it “relatively small” at \u00a342m ($53m) in 2022.<\/p>\n
Israel has repeatedly denied breaching international humanitarian law in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Responding to previous cases of dissent by Western officials over policy and arms supply, Israel\u2019s government has said it is acting to defeat Hamas as \u201ca genocidal terrorist organisation which commits war crimes as well as crimes against humanity”.<\/p>\n
In May, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) applied for arrest warrants for Israel\u2019s prime minister and defence minister, as well as for leaders of Hamas, for war crimes, but these have yet to be issued.<\/p>\n
An FCDO spokesperson said: \u201cThis government is committed to upholding international law. We have made clear that we will not export items if they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violations of International Humanitarian Law.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spokesperson added: \u201cThere is an ongoing review process to assess whether Israel is complying with International Humanitarian Law, which the Foreign Secretary initiated on day one in office. <\/p>\n
We will provide an update as soon as that review process has been completed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A British Foreign Office official who worked on counter terrorism has resigned in protest at arms sales to Israel, saying the UK government \u201cmay be complicit in war crimes\u201d. Mark Smith wrote to colleagues on Friday, saying he had raised concerns \u201cat every level\u201d in the Foreign Office, including through an official whistle blowing mechanism. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[4464,2234,4462,1632,2293,878,833,4463,225,946],"class_list":["post-8136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-arms","tag-british","tag-diplomat","tag-foreign","tag-israel","tag-mark","tag-office","tag-resigns","tag-sales","tag-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8138,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8136\/revisions\/8138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}