Why is the UK still selling arms to Israel?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2024
⏱️ 31 minutes
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Summary
The Prime Minister has called the Israeli Prime Minister's actions in Gaza 'increasingly intolerable' in a phone call with Netanyahu after the deaths of three British aid workers in an Israeli airstrike.
The words are tougher than we've seen before.
But the PM is now coming under pressure to end arms sales to Israel. Will he wait for America to move first? Is he watching to see where public opinion goes? Should Keir Starmer be more forthright - as the Lib Dem leader has been - in taking the initiative and call for arms sales to end - something many in his party are desperate to see.
We speak to Zarah Sultana , the Labour backbencher who's been at the forefront of this appeal - and to former Labour front bencher Jess Philips.
Later, what time is it on The Moon and why does NASA believe we need to sort it out?
Editor: Tom Hughes
Senior Producer: Gabriel Radus
Producer: Laura FitzPatrick
Social Media Editor: Georgia Foxwell
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.2 | This is a global player original podcast. I think we've always have a very careful export licensing |
| 0:14.5 | regime that we adhere to. There are a set of rules, regulations and procedures that will always |
| 0:19.4 | follow. And I've been consistently clear with Prime Minister Netanyahu since the start of this conflict, that whilst, |
| 0:24.7 | of course, we defend Israel's right to defend itself and its people against attacks from Hamas, |
| 0:29.9 | they have to do that in accordance with international humanitarian law, protect civilian lives, |
| 0:34.6 | and sadly too many civilians have already lost their lives, get more aid |
| 0:37.9 | into Gaza. That's what we've consistently called. That was Rishi Sunak on the Sun podcast with |
| 0:42.9 | political editor Harry Coles and he was asked the question, should Britain stop arms sales to Israel? |
| 0:51.7 | The easy answer is yes or no. He doesn't quite do either. And you wonder whether he's |
| 0:59.2 | holding open the possibility that Britain will now suspend arms sales to Israel as a result of the |
| 1:08.2 | seven aid workers being killed in Gaza in the last day or so. |
| 1:12.8 | Yeah, coming under increasing pressure to restrict those arms sales |
| 1:16.9 | because of those three British aid workers killed in an airstrike in Gaza, |
| 1:22.4 | many people will be thinking about the 200 or so local aid workers |
| 1:27.1 | who've already been killed in air strikes, |
| 1:30.5 | in Gaza, whose deaths haven't led to that change of policy. Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:39.6 | The news agents. It's John. It's Emily. It's Lewis. And one person who has come out and said absolutely clearly that arms sales need to stop to Israel is the Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davy. |
| 1:53.3 | He says a threshold has been passed and it is time to make that change. |
| 1:58.3 | And that is going to ratchet up the pressure because we already know |
| 2:01.1 | there are an awful lot of Labour backbenchers who think the arms sales should stop. There are |
| 2:05.5 | some conservative voices as well making that argument. And now we have the leader of the Lib Dems |
... |
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