Former British PM blasts ‘insane’ plan for arms embargo of Israel

Ban on arms sales to Israel a ‘death wish for Western civilization,’ says Boris Johnson.

By World Israel News Staff

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson lambasted calls for an arms embargo against Israel, saying such proposals constituted a “death wish” for Western civilization.

Johnson, the 59-year-old Conservative former Mayor of London who served as premier from 2019 to 2022, tore into advocates of a ban on arms sales to Israel Friday, penning an editorial piece published by The Daily Mail.

“If you want an example of the death wish of Western civilisation,” Johnson wrote, “I give you the current proposal from members of the British establishment that this country should ban arms sales to Israel.”

Calling the idea “government madness,” Johnson slammed attorneys working for the Foreign Office he said have been lobbying for an arms embargo against Israel.

In a veiled dig at his predecessor, Foreign Secretary David Cameron – who served as prime minister from 2010 to 2016 and who ardently opposed the Brexit Johnson championed – Johnson slammed “the Foreign Secretary himself” for failing to reject the proposal.

Johnson lamented that the idea has no “spread pretty wide,” with Members of Parliament across the political spectrum backing the idea, along with a former director of MI6 – Britain’s secret intelligence service – former Supreme Court justices, and hundreds of jurists.

“We are being asked to shun the Israelis, to mount a total moral repudiation of Israel,” wrote Johnson, “when that country has only recently suffered the biggest and most horrifying massacre of Jewish people since World War II; and when 130 hostages, including, for heaven’s sake, a baby, are being kept in dungeons in Gaza by their jihadi captors.”

Britain is a relatively minor exporter of arms to Israel, with only $53 million in sales to Israel in 2022 according to the British government, and $727 million since 2008 according to The Campaign Against Arms Trade.

However, the possibility of a British arms embargo has raised fears that such a move could encourage other countries to limit or ban weapons sales to the Jewish state.

On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden defended weapons sales to Israel, saying the government believes they are legal as Israel is conducting a “legitimate war.”

Israel, Dowden said, is “still facing this existential threat from Hamas,” and is “prosecuting a legitimate war of self-defense.”