UK, Germany value money over human life as they protect their weapons sales to Israel

Alameen Templeton
Germany, like the UK, is once again brandishing the common law right of security of contract to continue exporting weapons parts to Israel under agreements that existed before October 7 last year.
Reuters reports Thursday new licences for the export of “weapons of war” to Israel have been put on hold by Germany pending legal challenges.
It turns out, despite Germany’s high-profile, diplomatic support for Israel throughout the Gaza genocide, Berlin has cut off the sale of weapons to the pariah country since the Holocaust began.
But it continues to supply weapons and parts under contracts that existed before October 7 2023.
What is ‘non-lethal’?
Britain is also undertaking a painstaking review of all of its arms exports to Israel, insisting it needs to differentiate between “lethal” and “non-lethal” exports to protect the existing contracts from unnecessary interference. Of course, what is sees as “lethal” when exporting weapons to Israel changes when it comes to baby formula exports to Iraq that were notoriously banned in the Nineties.
It begs the question: does the common law right of “security of contract”, intended to protect business deals, eclipse charters like the Geneva Convention that are enshrined to protect human life and prevent genocide?
Citing data from Germany’s economy ministry and an “inside” source, Reuters reports licences for “weapons of war” to Israel amounted to just $36,150 in 2024 and total arms exports dropped to $16.1m.
In 2023, arms exports totalled $363.5m – which was a 10-fold increase from 2022.
Reuters says Germany “had stopped work on approving export licences for arms to Israel pending a resolution of legal cases arguing that such exports from Germany breached humanitarian law”.
Double jeopardy
Germany is facing two cases, one at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and one in Germany, brought by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).
Nicaragua approached the ICJ in March, accusing Germany of failing to prevent a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and also that is “contributed to the commission of genocide”. It requested the court to impose emergency measures to halt German arms exports to Israel and to reinstate funding for Unrwa.
The ECCHR filed a lawsuit in April to suspend export licences issued by the German government for arms shipments to Israel.
However, a source told Reuters Berlin had not exported any “weapons of war” under any licence to Israel since October 7, aside from spare parts for long-term contracts.
No verdict has been reached in either case but they have spread a ripple effect across Europe.
The UK has suspended 30 arms export licences to Israel, but continues servicing another 320 contracts. That followed a “review” by the Labour government which found British-made weapons may have been used in violation of international humanitarian law in Gaza.
‘Vital supply chain’
However, the UK insisted it would continue to export parts for the F-35 fighter jet, which has been described by activists as “the workhorse of genocide”.
David Lammy, the foreign minister, said that parts for F-35s were excluded from the ban because stopping their export would “undermine the global F-35 supply chain that is vital for the security of the UK, our allies and Nato”.
As though security of contract is more important than preventing genocide. Lammy didn’t explain how withholding parts from Israel while continuing to send them to other partners could jeopardise the “global supply chain”.
In contrast, Dutch judges have suffered no such qualms, clearly seeing human rights conventions as more important than commercial contracts and war profits.
In February, a court in the Netherlands ordered its government to stop all exports of components for the F-35 fighter jets over concerns they could be used against civilians in Gaza.
So, despite knowing their weapons and spares will be used to commit genocide, the UK and Germany continue exporting death to Gaza because of business concerns, citing security of contract.
Clearly, they value money above human life.