Britain’s arms crackdown on Israel has come at a dreadful time

The Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis is a moderate man and chooses his words carefully. So his statement about David Lammy’s suspension of 30 export licences to Israel was striking in its tone, if not surprising in its content.

‘It beggars belief that the British government, a close strategic ally of Israel, has announced a partial suspension of arms licences, at a time when Israel is fighting a war for its very survival on seven fronts forced upon it on the 7th October, and at the very moment when six hostages murdered in cold blood by cruel terrorists were being buried by their families,’ he said.

The Foreign Secretary’s timing did feel a bit rum. In Israel, yesterday was an intense moment of national mourning. The cruelty of the execution of the six hostages underground was found not just in the depravity of the act itself, but the way it came at a moment when Israelis had allowed themselves to hope.