Mark Smith resigned last August over the UK’s failure to stop selling arms to Israel, amid the genocide in Gaza.
By Anealla Safdar
London, United Kingdom – Mark Smith, a diplomat who quit his Foreign Office job over the UK’s refusal to stop selling arms to Israel, said civil servants who question the onslaught in Gaza are routinely silenced by their seniors.
“Thousands of conversations within the walls of the Foreign Office on the most controversial aspects of our arms sales policy will never be seen by the public [and] never be put to a court,” he said on Friday in London, at an unofficial inquiry probing alleged UK complicity in Israeli war crimes.
He said he was repeatedly warned by colleagues against documenting his concerns in writing, as he worked on a report assessing whether the government is legally compliant in exporting arms to certain countries.
