THIS WEEK, A British diplomat posted in Dublin resigned from the UK foreign service in protest over his government’s support for Israel through the licensing of weapons sales.

In his resignation letter, Mark Smith wrote: “Each day we witness clear and unquestionable examples of war crimes and breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza perpetrated by the State of Israel.”

Smith said concerns regarding the legality of UK arms sales to Israel that he raised “at every level” of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office were “disregarded”. 

Smith is the first UK official to quit over arms sales to Israel since the war began, but there have been others like him elsewhere. 

One of those is former US State Department official Josh Paul, who worked on arms sales vetting but resigned last October, not long after the Israeli assault on Gaza began.

Speaking to The Journal, Paul praised Smith’s decision as “a very important statement”, which he said aligns with his own observations of US-Israeli arms deals “and with the others who have resigned, both in the US and elsewhere”. 

“Our governments are violating both their own laws and international law through their continued provision of lethal arms to Israel for use in Gaza,” Paul said. 

“This is not a complicated question at this point, there is manifest evidence of such violations of both domestic and international law.

“I think that’s why both for myself, as someone who was directly involved in the arms transfer process here in the US, as well as for Mark Smith, who had previously had a role in arms transfers in the UK, this is not a difficult decision. This is a clear cut case.”

In February, over 800 civil servants in 12 countries and EU institutions signed an open letter expressing similar concerns. 

Special treatment

When Paul raised his concerns about arms sales to Israel within the US State Department, he said he was not met with counter arguments on the specifics.

“The argument was, look, you know, this is the President’s policy. As civil servants, we are there to carry out the President’s policy,” he said.

“No one made an argument to me on the substance of the concerns I was raising about our lack of, for a long time I would say, compliance with certain US laws such as Leahy laws, which are the Human Rights vetting of foreign forces that we work with.

“No one argued that many civilians were not going to be killed.”

Asked if there is often a tension between strategic, geopolitical calculations and abiding by legal requirements regarding human rights when signing off on arms deals, Paul said there is.

“But I think what’s different here is that normally the President of the United States does not weigh in on individual arms transfers.”

Instead of Israeli requests for weapons shipments going through the usual, “bottom up” route through the State Department’s bureaucracy, “it was simply being directed from the very senior levels of the State Department and the White House.

“I hadn’t really encountered a context in which the decisions had already been made. Normally, the bureaucracy develops the policy and then presents options, but that wasn’t happening.”

These exceptions for Israel are not new though, as Paul explained.

“I think that there have been a number of laws that the US has been ignoring when it comes to Israel for a long time.”

“Another problem is that ultimately, the laws are up to the executive branch to enforce on itself,” a situation that has seen the White House play fast and loose with US law in other areas, such as when the country goes to war. 

“There is a long history of executive branch lawyers interpreting laws as broadly as possible to give the president maximum flexibility,” Paul said.

“So there is clearly a constitutional and legal issue when it comes to both the use of force and the provision of arms to partner forces that I think this crisis has really brought into focus, because the gap between what the law says and what we are doing is so obvious.”

No regrets

“I haven’t regretted it at all,” Paul said of his decision to resign.

“If I was still in the same job, I would still be approving these arms transfers that have killed now tens of thousands of people in Gaza.”

He now works for DAWN, an organisation that promotes democracy in the Arab world.

Since his resignation, he has had a warmer reception than he expected.

“I thought that I would be pretty isolated in Washington and in America. And on the contrary, I’ve been welcomed into many, many new communities and many new friendships.”

He has no doubt it will shape his career from now on though, and not all his former colleagues have been supportive. 

“I don’t expect I’ll be able to work in government again, but it has certainly given me an opportunity to try and shape American politics and policy on this issue.

“I didn’t burn too many bridges.”

“There are certainly some people I thought I would have heard from that I haven’t, but no one who I worked with has sort of said anything particularly vicious to me or anything like that. 

He said people “on the inside” understand his concerns. “I think many, many of them share those concerns.”

More to come?

It’s Paul’s view that if the UK continues with its policy on Israeli arms sales, more people will follow Mark Smith’s lead. 

“For as long as UK policy remains so out of step with the expertise of its own civil service, as well as the clear violations of its own commitments to international law, I think that more resignations will be likely over there.”

Since 2008, the UK government has licensed arms worth more than £576 million to Israel, according to analysis of Government export data by the Campaign Against Arms Trade.

In June this year the UK government published data on licences granted to Israel since the Hamas attack on Israel in October, which showed it had issued 42 licences between 7 October and 31 May.

The UK government has promised to review arms sales to Israel but is yet to publish legal advice it has received on the matter. 

In the US, the presidential election this year makes the picture a bit more complicated.

“I think people are waiting to see what happens with this election, and with the Harris campaign, and whether they will commit to any significant changes.

“But if we are in the same position in terms of the ongoing conflict after the election, I would not be surprised to see more resignations here.”