Ex-official was ordered to make UK arms report look ‘less bad’, Gaza tribunal hears

Mark Smith, civil servant who resigned over war in Gaza, joins Corbyn-led inquest into UK complicity in Israeli crimes

Indepdent lawmaker Jeremy Corbyn speaks at the Gaza Tribunal in Westminster, London on 5 September 2024 (Rayhan Uddin/MEE)

Indepdent lawmaker Jeremy Corbyn speaks at The Gaza Tribunal in Westminster, London, on 5 September 2024 (Rayhan Uddin/MEE)

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A former British foreign office official who resigned over Israel’s war on Gaza was ordered to alter a document he was authoring on UK arms sales to make it look “less bad”, he told an inquiry into Britain’s role in Israeli war crimes on Friday.

Mark Smith joined the final day of The Gaza Tribunal, an unofficial two-day inquiry led by former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, via audio link to share his testimony.

Smith was previously the penholder of a report that assessed whether the UK government was legally compliant in its arms exports to countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

It is unclear which specific countries Smith was reporting on or the timeframe of when he authored the report.

“While I was working on the report, I was routinely asked to change the report. This was not to correct mistakes or to ensure accuracy, as would normally be the case with a civil service report. But I was actually asked to alter the wording,” Smith said.

“I was asked to change the placement of the paragraphs and to omit the information so that it sounded less bad.”

He said that in sections where he wrote about civilian casualties, he was asked to “clean them down, make them smaller”.

Regarding information related to British efforts to improve a situation or enhance the precision of munitions, he was asked to expand these sections and place them further up in the report.

Smith said that important conversations at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office deliberately took place in person rather than in writing, including during Israel’s war on Gaza.

“The reason for that is that we didn't want those conversations to be requested by a court,” he said.

“There have been hundreds of thousands of conversations within the walls of the foreign office on the most controversial aspects of our arms sales policy, which will never be seen by the public.”

In August of last year, Smith became the first known British civil servant to resign over Israel’s war on Gaza.

Warnings

Smith told the tribunal that it was clear to him that Israel was breaching international law.

'I was asked to change the placement of the paragraphs and to omit the information so that it sounded less bad'

- Mark Smith, former UK official

At the time, Smith was based in Dublin, where he said it was his role to present the UK government’s policies on Israel to the Irish government.

The lines that he was told by the foreign office to relay, Smith said, he “knew to be false”.

“Because of my previous speciality on that topic, I went to the team in Dublin and said, Can you explain this to me?” He said.

Smith was met with a barrage of angry emails, “warning me off talking about it, asking me why I was asking these questions, and telling me off for even writing down my concerns”.

He went on to attempt to raise his concerns with senior civil servants, but faced delays and hurdles.

Eventually, he met with a senior foreign office official, who insisted on a verbal meeting.

“I set out all the reasons in detail why it was absolutely impossible to suggest that we were acting legally by continuing our arms sales to Israel,” he said.

The official replied by thanking Smith but taking no further action. Smith resigned shortly after.

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Fran Heathcote, the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents public sector workers including civil servants, also gave evidence to the tribunal.

She stated that the union’s members had been asked to perform functions that could potentially be in breach of international law and their obligations under the civil service code.

“In forcing our members to continue to undertake work involving interactions with the government of Israel, the employer is potentially putting our members in a position of conflict given their various obligations under the civil service code,” Heathcote said.

“We believe that the employer also is potentially asking our members to act in contravention of the law.”

She added that on 16 May, staff from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office wrote to David Lammy, then foreign secretary, raising concerns about Israeli violations of international humanitarian law, and potential UK government complicity.

“The response from the government was nothing short of a disgrace,” she said. “It went on to suggest that civil servants may wish to resign if they are uncomfortable.”

Heathcote said that members had “repeatedly” approached the PCS to seek legal advice on potential violations of international law related to their work in government.

'Britain undermining justice'

Over the two-day tribunal, 29 witnesses provided testimony covering a range of topics and areas of expertise.

Forz Khan, a barrister who represents the family of James Henderson, a British aid worker killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza in April 2024, was among those to give evidence.

Speaking to Middle East Eye about Henderson’s killing, Forz said: “The British government has taken at face value the denial of any wrongdoing by the Israeli government. That's far from what we believe to be the truth, and we're hoping that a coroner's court will to some degree reveal the truth.”

“If the government really wishes to comply with their international obligations, especially in relation to genocide and war crimes, they need to have a much firmer line with Israel, not pander to them, and certainly not appease them,” he added.

Elsewhere during the hearing on Friday, Sara Husseini, the director of the British Palestine Committee, said that British citizens of Palestinian descent were being discriminated against, intimidated and demonised for speaking out against Israeli actions.

Tayab Ali, the director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), said that Britain had comprehensively failed to uphold its international legal obligations.

That included a failure to uphold provisional measures set out by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to prevent genocide in Gaza, as laid out in January 2024, as well as the ICJ’s advisory opinion six months later, which ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory was unlawful and must end immediately.

'By licensing components of Israel's F35 fighter jets, Britain has substantially facilitated international crimes'

- Tayab Ali, lawyer

“By licensing components of their F35 fighter jets, which form the backbone of Israel’s assault on Gaza, Britain has substantially facilitated international crimes, and has crossed into the territory of complicity,” Ali said.

As well as the ICJ, he said Britain had also failed in its obligations under the Rome Statute, the treaty which created the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“Britain, as a state party to the Rome Statute, has undermined the court. It has questioned its jurisdiction, withheld support for arrest warrants and failed to facilitate investigations,” he said.

He said that Britain had stood by while ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan, a British citizen, had come under “unprecedented attack”.

After Karim announced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant had been handed ICC arrest warrants, he was slapped with sanctions by Washington. That included the freezing of his bank account, as well as those of his family members.

Has Netanyahu sabotaged his own campaign against Karim Khan?

“He has had no unofficial or official support from the British government with regards to the United States sanctions on him. His bank accounts remained closed by a British bank,” Ali said.

Ali cited an investigation by MEE earlier this year, which revealed that former Foreign Secretary David Cameron had directly threatened Karim in relation to Israeli arrest warrants.

“If this is proven, it would amount to direct state interference in judicial independence, a flagrant breach of Britain's obligations under the Rome Statute,” he said.

“Britain has not only betrayed the victims of Gaza, but actively undermined the very institution designed to deliver justice.”

Other testimonies were provided by genocide scholar Raz Segal, international law expert Gearóid Ó Cuinn, and Guillaume Long, the former foreign minister of Ecuador who now advises the Hague Group.

Matt Kennard, a British journalist, said that Britain’s role in Israel’s genocide had gone beyond complicity to “active participation”, particularly through the use of its Akrotiri air base in Cyprus.

The base has served as a hub for near-daily reconnaissance flights over Gaza. The UK has released no information on these flights.

There was also evidence from international law professor Richard Falk, as well as Eyal Weizman, the director of Forensic Architecture, and Rami Khayal of the Palestinian Youth Movement.

Corbyn concluded the session by stating that he and his co-collaborators would now use the testimonies, as well as additional written testimonies to be sent in over the coming days, to compile a detailed report.

The independent lawmaker had earlier this year put forward a bill for a public Chilcot-style inquiry into Britain's military cooperation with Israel.

The bill was blocked by the Labour government, which sparked the idea for the two-day unofficial inquest.

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