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British diplomat Mark Smith resigns over UK arms sales to Israel - what a principled, brave decision.
“It is with sadness that I resign after a long career in the diplomatic service, however, I can no longer carry out my duties in the knowledge that this Department may be complicit in war crimes”
https://aoav.org.uk/2024/senior-british-diplomat-mark-smith-resigns-over-uks-arms-sales-to-israel/
The only other site with this story is countylocalnews.com which is infested with hijack script and is on the list of fake news sites on Wikipedia.
I would treat this story with complete caution, there's no mention of what position was held by this individual.
AOAV isn't a news site but a charity.
I did check this too for that reason but it’s now been picked up by The National and Middle East Monitor, too
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24524719.foreign-office-diplomat-quits-israel-arms-sales/
My one question is why did it take him 10 months of slaughter to come to this realisation.
@sufferforme @pvonhellermannn to be fair to him he knew that such a gesture would only possibly make a difference with a Labour government, not the #Tories, so he waited. Story is now picking up and #DavidLammy is slowly getting cornered. It is our role to put pressure on them now. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/14/will-the-uks-new-labour-government-halt-arms-sales-to-israel
@sheislaurence @sufferforme @pvonhellermannn
It looks to me like he tried internal whistleblower-reporting first, and this is what he's doing now that's failed.
@unchartedworlds @sheislaurence @pvonhellermannn
I realise it isn't fair of me to impose my feelings onto someone else, but in that situation I know I could not have stayed - maybe a month or so, trying to persuade people internally - when it becomes clear that would have no impact, my own ethics would not allow me to keep participating.
@pvonhellermannn UK govt is an active participant in genocide. Conscientious govt employees must resign or be complicit in war crimes.
@pvonhellermannn This is the UK Government he worked for, so I guess he's just really selective about which countries he's willing to get outraged about. Because he's apparently been plugging away while his country armed genocidal maniacs for years.
(Note: this info is from 3 years ago, so I admit it's possible that the UK briefly stopped their centuries-old practice of arming dubious governments in 2022 and this guy started working between then and Oct 7 2023.) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/27/17bn-of-uk-arms-sold-to-rights-abusers
@pvonhellermannn The thing is, all the rest should be prosecuted by the ICC, and also Biden, which of course would never happen because they are the ones leading the world and can't be bothered by these sort of distractions. Also for getting bribes from Israel, no doubt about it!