[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
The British abandonment of Israel continues apace. “UK bars all Israelis from prestigious defense college,” i24News, September 14, 2025:
The British government has announced that, starting next year, Israelis will no longer be admitted to the Royal College of Defense Studies (RCDS), marking the first exclusion of Israelis since the institution was founded in 1927. Previously, restrictions applied only to officers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), but the new policy will apply to all Israeli applicants, civilian or military.
The decision comes amid the ongoing war in Gaza, according to reporting by The Telegraph, and represents a notable shift in British-Israeli defense cooperation….
Can the British military really do without close relations with Israel’s military? Which country, do you think, is more advanced in drone technology, in anti-missile systems, in the application of AI on the battlefield? Britain already employs Watchkeeper UAV, based on Israel’s Hermes 450 drone, Other key systems include the Sky Sabre missile defense system, which draws on technology from Israel’s Iron Dome, and Spike NLOS (Exactor) missile systems.
Close relations between British and Israeli military officers, forged early on, work to the advantage of both parties. They share experiences and strategies, they discuss existing weapons and what weapons are being developed, or that they wish would be developed.
This crude and cruel banishment by the British government of Israelis who want to study at the Royal Military College will do more damage to the British military than to that of Israel.
Right now, Israel is fighting.a seven-front war for its survival. But it is not only fighting for itself. Muslim terror groups are not just intent on destroying Israel, but want to destroy, through demography, terrorism, and combat (qital), the entire world of Infidels. When Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, in Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan, it was setting back by several years Iran’s program to build a half-dozen nuclear weapons. Those weapons would not only threaten Israel, but carried on the ballistic missiles Iran has also been building, could reach Western Europe and North America. It was Israel, similarly, that removed the threat of a nuclear-armed Iraq led by that monster Saddam Hussein, when the IDF destroyed the Osirak reactor in 1981. And Israel did the same with Assad’s nuclear project, in 2007 destroying the nuclear reactor being built at Al-Kibar, out in the Syrian desert. Instead of gratitude to the Jewish state, much of the West has calumniated and ostracized the Jewish state.
A spokesperson for the British Ministry of Defense defended the decision, emphasizing that the college welcomes participants from many nations, provided they respect international humanitarian law. The spokesperson criticized Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza, calling instead for a diplomatic resolution that includes a ceasefire, the release of hostages, and expanded humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.
It is precisely that offer of a ceasefire, the release of hostages, and even more humanitarian aid than the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation already has delivered — some 120 million meals since May to people in Gaza — that Hamas has rejected. Hamas insists that it be allowed both to keep its weapons and to remain in control of the Strip.
Who will lose more from this unseemly decision by the British government to prevent Israelis from attending the Royal College of Defense Studies? You know the answer to that, even if Keir Starmer and David Lammy do not.
