Miliband Faces High Court Battle In UK Over Gaza Rights
THE GUARDIAN: Lawyers for Palestinian families claim foreign secretary's failure to ban arms sales to Israel flouted international law

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, has acted "in flagrant and continuing breach of international law" in failing to suspend arms exports to Israel, the high court will be told.

In what is thought to be the first legal challenge resulting from Israel's operation in Gaza, lawyers representing more than 30 Palestinian families have accused Miliband, along with the ministers for defence and business, of acting illegally by failing to suspend arms sales and government assistance after alleged Israeli human rights violations.

Lawyers acting on behalf of the Palestinian charity Al-Haq said the case would be the first of numerous actions brought against Israel, as activity is stepped up to examine the humanitarian and financial cost of recent events.

"The UK has urgent international obligations that it must fulfil immediately," Phil Shiner, the lawyer representing Al-Haq, said today.

A Foreign Office statement said the claims made on behalf of Al-Haq were "wholly inapt" for resolution in the UK courts and insisted "the government continues to work hard in an effort to secure peace in the Middle East".

"Britain has some of the tightest regulations in the world for arms sales," the statement adds.

"The government monitors the situation in Israel with care in considering applications for arms export licences."

A high court judge will examine the papers in the case and decide within seven days whether it should proceed. >>> Afua Hirsch and David Pallister | Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Security Teaching Moment
WASHINGTON TIMES: Lost amid the national distractions of a Super Bowl and Super Tuesday, the clock is running down on an immense sale of precision-guided munitions and other advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia and several of the smaller oil-rich Gulf States the Saudis dominate.

Unless two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress adopt resolutions of disapproval by Feb. 14, these transactions will proceed. All other things being equal, it is a safe bet the Saudis will augment their already vast arsenal with these new American arms.

After all, many in official Washington recognize the growing aggressiveness of Iran is a threat to U.S. interests in the region — from Iraq to Israel to the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf. Even before Bush administration efforts to prevent Tehran's Islamofascist mullahs from obtaining nuclear weapons were undone by a politicized National Intelligence Estimate, the step of up-arming rival nations was an obvious move. In the aftermath of that NIE, it became the only game in town.

Thanks moreover to the Saudis' considerable influence in U.S. corridors of power — cultivated over many years and at a cost of untold millions of dollars spent on lavish retainers, trips and other inducements for politicians, former officials and lawyer-lobbyists — the latest weapon sale has been greased like one of the Gulfies' petrodollar-powered "sovereign wealth" acquisitions. Apart from 100 or so mostly Democratic congressmen who have declared their opposition to such further arming of the Saudis, scarcely a discouraging word has been heard about the whole matter.

President Bush's latest sop to the Saudis nonetheless provides something valuable — what educators call a "teaching moment."

The notion that the United States' vital interests will be served by providing the Saudis and their minions with billions of dollars in additional arms fundamentally rests on the proposition that Saudi Arabia is indeed a "reliable ally." Would anybody in their right mind propose such sales if we had reason to believe they might be used against us — either by the original owners or by a successor government? Presumably not. Security teaching moment >>> By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

”The Unlovable Saudis”
THE GUARDIAN: Willie Morris
[biography], the British ambassador from 1968 to 1972, could not stand the Saudis. They were "less lovable than some other people", he said.

The border guards were "rude". Despite their stern official religion, "one can find a minister incoherently drunk in his office before noon". Their oil billions led to a "corruption of character which enables the Saudis to regard the rest of the world as existing for their convenience", he wrote in his valedictory dispatch. [document] The unlovable Saudis (more)

THE GUARDIAN: Attorney-general knew of BAE and the £1bn. Then concealed it

BAE files: Ian Gilmour

Corruption in Saudi Arabia

BAE in Saudi Arabia

What BAE sells

Healey’s machine

Britain and the arms trade

Watch video: Denis Healey [BAE files]

BAE: Goldsmith denies BAE cash claim

Mark Alexander