JJP emails the Prime Minister

On 13 April 2026, JJP emailed the Prime Minister about expanding arms sales to Israel.

Our email is below.

Dear Mr Starmer,

I am writing to you on behalf of a 2500-strong UK Jewish organisation.

We are extremely concerned that our country is once again expanding its arms exports to Israel.

We are particularly concerned that the licences included an Open Individual Export Licence for “components and technology for targeting equipment” – a category of export that the UK government had publicly suspended eight months earlier, citing the risk of use in Israel’s war in Gaza.

We understand that the UK government is allowing that ‘targeting equipment’ export deal to go ahead because it has been informed that, although the material is being exported to Israel, Israel intends to re-export it to an as yet unidentified non-Israeli end-user.

We know that, in the past, military exports to Israel (ostensibly for non-Israeli end-use) were never transferred – and consequently ended up being used by the Israeli military in breach of UK export licence conditions.

All this is particularly crucial because of five recent and current developments:

1) Israel initiated the war against Iran which is causing the UK immense economic, political and geopolitical problems – and is therefore clearly not in our national interest. We suspect that UK-made military material has almost certainly been used against Iran – and is also being used against Lebanon.

2) Israel seems to be planning to renew its war in Gaza ( https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-seizes-nearly-60-percent-gaza-despite-ceasefire-plans-resume-genocide ).

3) It now appears that the death toll in Gaza is far higher than often previously thought – and that Israel may have committed many more war crimes than previously recognised. Key new information was revealed yesterday by the UK broadcasting organisation, Sky News (  https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/global-affairs/40000-missing-or-trapped-beneath-rubble-in-the-gaza-strip/video/6a95ee928331e59a1b68d418310dcf91 ).

4) Israel is destabilising Lebanon, which is also not in the UK’s national interest. Indeed, at the UN, our ambassador made it clear that “Israel’s decision to expand its ground operations further into Lebanon undermines [the UK’s] work [supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces] and threatens Lebanon’s sovereignty. He also made it clear that [Israeli] strikes “on Lebanese Armed Forces positions are also deeply concerning” and that “the humanitarian toll is staggering”.

We very much look forward to hearing from you,

Yours sincerely,