HALT arms sales to Israel immediately, the Scottish National Party demanded today.

The party’s Middle East spokesman Brendan O’Hara, one of the foremost parliamentary champions of the Palestinian cause, said that securing peace “will require more than diplomatic statements — it will require firm diplomatic action, including an immediate end to arms sales to Israel.”

Mr O’Hara added that “the ceasefire achieved in Lebanon is welcome, but it must not diminish or dilute the strength of our efforts in stopping the collective punishment of the Palestinian people in Gaza.   

“For too long, far too many in the international community have been guilty of offering support for those Israeli actions, instead of sanction.
 
“A renewed commitment from the international community this new year is the only path to peace in Gaza and Israel, the only path to a two-state solution and the only hope of a permanent peace across the wider Middle East.”

Labour left campaign group Momentum also joined the calls, saying “the UK Government still continues to supply arms for Israel’s brutal genocide against the Palestinian people. Outrageous.”

And a Stop the War Coalition spokesperson said that “stopping British arms sales to Israel must be a top priority for the solidarity movement in 2025.”

Amnesty International is the latest human rights body to dub Israel’s actions in Gaza, which have killed around 45,000 Palestinians, with more than two-thirds being women and children, genocidal.

Parliamentary opposition to the genocide was spearheaded by the SNP prior to the general election, when it used its status as the third-largest party in parliament to regularly secure time to debate the issue.

Since the election, in which the SNP lost most of their Westminster seats and the Liberal Democrats returned to third parliamentary place, opportunities to highlight the crisis have diminished.

All forms of support for the Palestinian people were damned in an extraordinary article in the Jewish Chronicle by far-right pundit Melanie Phillips originally headlined “If you support the Palestinian cause in any form you’re facilitating Jew-hate.”

After a storm of protest the headline was changed but the hate-filled article remains on the Chronicle’s site in the latest scandal to shake the once-respected newspaper.

Last year most of its centrist columnists left after it emerged that editor Jake Wallis-Simons, a veteran of tabloid journalism, had been publishing articles by an Israeli writer that were fabricated.