{"id":325954,"date":"2025-08-07T19:18:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T19:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/325954\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T19:18:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T19:18:18","slug":"israel-could-cut-uk-security-ties-if-starmer-recognises-palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/325954\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel could cut UK security ties if Starmer recognises Palestine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel is considering withdrawing defence and security co-operation with the UK if Sir Keir Starmer goes ahead with recognising Palestine, in a move that could undermine national security.<\/p>\n

Diplomatic sources have told The Times that Binyamin Netanyahu\u2019s government is examining the response as one of a range of options if Britain presses ahead with Palestinian recognition<\/a> next month.<\/p>\n

An official warned that Britain and other countries considering diplomatic recognition should \u201ccarefully consider\u201d the consequences of such a move.<\/p>\n

\"Benjamin<\/p>\n

Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem last week<\/p>\n

COHEN-MAGEN\/AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Another diplomatic source said: \u201cLondon needs to be careful because Bibi [Netanyahu] and his ministers have cards they could play too. Israel values its partnership with the UK but recent decisions mean it is coming under pressure and the UK has a lot to lose if Israel\u2019s government decides to take steps in response.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel has reacted furiously to the decision by Starmer<\/a>, accusing him of handing Hamas a \u201cprize for terror\u201d by going ahead with recognition outside of a peace process and before the remaining hostages are released. Starmer has said Britain will recognise the state of Palestine next month unless Israel allows more aid into Gaza, stops annexing land in the West Bank, agrees to a ceasefire and signs up to a long-term peace process. <\/p>\n

On Thursday Netanyahu said he intended to take control of all of Gaza<\/a> but did \u201cnot want to keep it\u201d as he convened a meeting with his security cabinet to discuss a complete military takeover. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Israeli security cabinet expected to approve Gaza occupation plan<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Withdrawing defence and security co-operation with Britain would have significant economic and security implications for both countries, experts warned. <\/p>\n

Over the past couple of years, Israel intelligence has provided crucial information to Britain\u2019s spy agencies about Iranian-backed threats in the UK, which now pose as big a threat to Britain as Russia<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Intelligence from Mossad, Israel\u2019s national spy agency, is understood to have passed crucial information to its British counterparts that thwarted an alleged Iranian-linked terrorist plot on the Israeli embassy in London. It led to two of the largest counterterror raids in the UK in recent years, when five men were arrested in connection to the alleged plan to target the embassy in Kensington, west London. <\/p>\n

The UK has also made use of Israeli-made drones for surveillance operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and Israeli defence equipment has been credited with saving the lives of British soldiers during military conflict with both countries.<\/p>\n

\"Prime<\/p>\n

Sir Keir Starmer<\/p>\n

TOBY MELVILLE\/AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Defence co-operation is also deeply ingrained between the two countries; Israeli companies sell weapons systems, parts and software to British companies such as BAE. <\/p>\n

Israeli firms are deeply integrated in the British defence industry\u2019s supply chains and account for a substantial chunk of the overall trading partnership between the two countries, which is worth \u00a36 billion and supports 38,000 jobs. <\/p>\n

Members of the Israeli government are said to be split over whether to cut ties with Britain. Some warn that it would have a detrimental impact on the Israeli economy and end the assistance being provided by the British military to fly RAF aircraft over Gaza to help find missing hostages.<\/p>\n

Other British assets in the region are being handed over to the Israeli military so it has real-time information on the movement of captured Israelis. <\/p>\n

Pulling defence co-operation would also have a significant economic impact to the Israeli economy because its exports far outweigh imports in the industry. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Blunder reveals UK hired foreign contractors for Gaza spy mission<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Britain also continues to supply spare parts for F-35 fighter jets despite suspending other export licences to Israel where the equipment was used to commit or facilitate violations of international law in Gaza. <\/p>\n

The Israeli embassy in London cautioned that any recognition of a Palestinian state in effect rewarded Hamas, but declined to comment on the consideration of intelligence ties until September.<\/p>\n

An embassy official told The Times: \u201cThis counterproductive move will certainly not contribute to deepening the mutually beneficial relations between Israel and those who advance this ill faith agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move would mark an all-time low for British-Israeli relations, which have come under significant strain since the Labour government suspended some export licences to Israel in September and in June the UK sanctioned two far-right Israeli ministers. <\/p>\n

The UK and Israel have collaborated on intelligence sharing for decades, beginning before the creation of the state of Israel and the recruitment of Jewish informants during the Mandate era in Palestine, which included code-breaking, counter-insurgency and surveillance.<\/p>\n

Experts predicted that Israel would not go ahead with plans to pull defence co-operation given the extent of mutual intelligence sharing as well as the economic implications and said it was more likely to be used as a threat in an attempt to force a change of mind on Palestinian statehood. <\/p>\n

The Foreign Office was approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel is considering withdrawing defence and security co-operation with the UK if Sir Keir Starmer goes ahead with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-325954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114989098969110919","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}