A British court ruled on Monday that the United Kingdom need not block the sale to Israel of U.K.-made parts for the F-35 fighter jet, dismissing an anti-Israel group’s legal action to ban it.
The Al-Haq group asked the High Court in London to block Britain’s Department for Business and Trade’s decision to exempt F-35 parts when it suspended some arms export licenses last year.
The direct export to Israel of U.K.-made F-35 components is still suspended. The lawsuit was over parts sent to a global F-35 spare parts pool, from which Israel may obtain them.
Al-Haq maintained the exemption was illegal because the components could be used in breach of international humanitarian law in Gaza, but the court rejected this argument, The Guardian reported.
The lawsuit cited the fact that the United Kingdom had assessed that Israel was not committed to complying with international humanitarian law.
Yet extending this to ban the export of F-35 parts would “undermine U.S. confidence in the U.K. and Nato”, the Defence Ministry said in its defense of the deal, which the court accepted. The U.S.-based Lockheed Martin aviation firm produces the F-35 with significant contributions from Northrop Grumman and the U.K.-based BAE Systems.
France, the United Kingdom, Spain and the Netherlands are among the countries that imposed a partial or full arms embargo on Israel following its conflicts with Iranian proxies, and later with Iran, after Oct. 7, 2023.
The 72-page ruling released on Monday states that that the case revolved around whether the United Kingdom “must withdraw from a specific multilateral defence collaboration” due to the concerns expressed in the lawsuit.
“Under our constitution that acutely sensitive and political issue is a matter for the executive which is democratically accountable to Parliament and ultimately to the electorate, not for the courts,” the judges found.
