In this episode, Daniel J. Levy speaks with Dr Lynette Nusbacher about the future of UK–Israel relations, as viewed from a British strategic perspective. They explore how the Labour government’s evolving stance – including threats of sanctions and the suspension of trade talks – is reshaping bilateral ties, and what this means for defence, intelligence and cyber cooperation.
Dr Lynette Nusbacher is a strategic consultant and former British Army intelligence officer who was Head of the Strategic Horizons Unit in the UK Cabinet Office and Senior Lecturer in War Studies, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. She was part of Britain’s National Security Secretariat working on UK’s national security strategy.
Transcript
(This transcript has been automatically generated by AI — please excuse any potential errors.)
Daniel J. Levy:
Hello and welcome to the BICOM’s podcast. I’m Daniel J. Levy, programmes manager. And today is the 22nd of May, 2025. My guest today is Doctor Lynnette Nusbacher, who is currently a strategic consultant. Having previously served as a British Army intelligence officer within the Cabinet Office, and as a strategic forecasting expert and lecturer at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst.
Today we will be discussing the issue of bilateral and strategic British Israeli relations. Thank you for joining me. And doctor Nusbacher, over to you.
Dr Lynette Nusbacher:
It’s a real pleasure to be here with you, Daniel. One of the things that I’m really sharply aware of as we sit down here is that David Lammy, the British foreign Secretary, has, has really uncorked on the Israeli government in the last day or so and in starting to talk seriously about sanctioning, particular figures in Israel and, and talking seriously about breaking off trade talks, the British government is sending a very strong signal to Israel.
And I think that is, that’s a warning to us to understand, exactly how Israel’s relationship with the UK is going to, is going to evolve over the next few weeks. And what do you think the calculus on the British government’s side was, that sort of moved them towards, first of all, issuing the joint statement with France and Canada.
But then, as you say, the sanctioning of certain Israelis and the suspension of free trade agreement talks. There are a few really important inputs to British decision making around the relationship between UK and Israel. And one of them is the Attorney General. And we don’t see the advice that the Attorney General passes on to cabinet about, the, the legality of supporting Israel and supporting Israeli operations.
And, that advice, which I’m not seeing and what you’re not seeing is definitely shaping what Lammy has to say, say to the House of Commons and what, what Lammy is going to do in, in changing the British relationship with, with Israel. Another important input is, is going to be the electoral assessment. The British people don’t support Hamas, but British people don’t support, don’t support, Israeli operations in, in Gaza right now.
And the humanitarian picture in Gaza in particular is, is not helping any desire on the part of David Lammy, who describes himself as a staunch Zionist or, Keir Starmer, the prime minister, to maintain any kind of strategic support for Israel, whether rhetorical or, or material in in fact, if you look back two, three years, when the current war started, we saw a British prime minister in Israel on the ground expressing support.
We saw foreign secretaries going from the UK to Israel as a strong signal of support. What I saw a few years ago that really impressed me was seeing the chief of the defence staff, Admiral Radican, standing beside his Israeli counterpart, signalling British defence support for Israel. And now that was under a different government. That was a conservative government.
The, the political orientation of that government was different. The Labour Party, does not have as strong a visceral support for Israel as the Conservative Party does. We haven’t seen Tony Radakin going back to Israel in the last few months. And part of that is because this is a government that has been less full throated in its support of Israel, but part of it is also that, the Labor Party does not as a, as a, as a political organization, have, have a strong impulse to demonstrate, to enact support for Israel regardless of what Israel is doing.
Daniel J. Levy:
And you said that this government hasn’t been as full throated as its predecessor in its support for Israel, but sort of beyond the rhetoric in terms of the day to day cooperation, particular on trade, military security. Where are the big differences, if any, between labour and the conservatives?
Dr Lynette Nusbacher:
The conservative prime minister and successive conservative foreign secretaries were turning up in person and we’ve not seen that for years.
We became accustomed to the idea that, cabinet level British officials don’t go to, to Israel. We know that for generations the, the royal family were were kept away from official visits to Israel. And, and we haven’t seen a lot of movement in that. But what I think is, is important to, to keep an eye on now is that instead of attending in person, the way the previous government did, as a strong signal of what I suppose we could call strategic solidarity, right now, British officials are not getting on planes.
I should say British elected officials are not getting on planes and going to Israel to demonstrate, that the UK and Israel are on the same side. And I think it’s because as the Israeli government has lost control of its ability to affect outcomes in, in Gaza, nobody wants to stand next to, Benjamin Netanyahu and in fact any kind of solidarity.
One of the things that’s important for us to, to have to look at is that when Israel was being attacked in, in 2023, and when Israel started to respond, we were seeing a war that had a comparatively straightforward narrative. Israel had been attacked in October of 23. Israel was responding in the end of 23 and into 24.
And, that story has faded into the background. Now, we saw, Prime Minister Netanyahu say that Britain and Canada and France were in effect, betraying the Israelis, who had been attacked in October of 2023 by telling Netanyahu’s government they needed to operate differently and not to put too fine a point on it. That was then.
This is now. This is no longer the end of 2023, when the world was still shocked by Hamas atrocities. The narrative about the Gaza war is now far more about what the Israelis are and are not allowing by way of humanitarian aid into Gaza and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous. And when the Israeli prime minister suggests that we in the West are going soft on Hamas at by expressing a view about humanitarian assistance flowing into Gaza, well, he’s wrong.
Nobody supports Hamas in, in the, the British government establishment, Mark Carney and Macron are not supporting Hamas. Of course they’re not. And they’re not, spitting on the memory, of Israelis who were killed or ignoring Israelis taken hostage in October of 2023. They are responding to the current operational and strategic situation in which, Hamas is continuing to exist, continuing to fight, continuing to flex its muscles in the West Bank and the Israeli plans for what to do in response are not promising to lead to a positive result.
But let me develop that idea a little bit further, as the Israeli government is encouraged by the American president suggesting that, pulverizing every building in Gaza, pound it down to rubble and then look for hostages in tunnels underneath that rubble and then begin to redevelop that as, as the, you know, that the Trump International Resort Gaza that pushes other countries, UK included, away from the process and away from the result and suggest that it’s politically impossible for a British or Canadian or French government to support the idea of dislocating deliberately 2 million people and, and destroying the, the buildings and, and the facilities that they have been depending on for a period of years and then, effectively expecting to resettle, relocate or rebuild afterwards in a meaningful time scale.
We know that the foundation for Gaza that is meant to be providing humanitarian aid through channels that the Israelis will trust, it is going to focus on delivering aid, not where people live, but where people are meant to, to relocate to.
And in fact, they’re meant to create a new set of refugee camps in southern Gaza. And we’ve seen that they’re not ready to operate that the private military corporations and similar organizations that are meant to receive leave and look after 2 million people in the southern Gaza Strip are not ready to do it. And we see that because as humanitarian aid is flowing into Gaza again, it is, it’s being handled by the usual suspects.
It’s being handled by U.N. food program, it’s being handled by World Kitchen. And that is a signal that whatever you think about the UN’s ability to deliver aid without delivering it to Hamas, and whatever you think about, where the people in Gaza should be, where they should move to right now, there is not alternative infrastructure. There is no way right now that we can see a path from the current state of affairs to a good news story.
Whatever Prime Minister Netanyahu says about the British, French and Canadian response to the humanitarian situation in Gaza, he is not offering a credible good news story. So, we can’t expect the British government to go along with what looks a lot like a disaster.
Well, in the making.
Daniel J. Levy:
And on a slightly more strategic level, David Lammy was keen to emphasize in his Commons statements that the UK is a friend of Israel. What strategic joint interests bind the UK and Israel together, and how have they manifest themselves in recent years? So, say 2 or 3 years.
Dr Lynette Nusbacher:
The UK and Israel are strategic partners, and that’s because British interests and Israeli interests align. Now, I’ll give you an example. Russia and Iran have for years had a productive defence relationship. We were all very concerned as we saw Russian air defence rockets being sent to Iran. And we are concerned now as we see Iranian theatre ballistic missiles being transferred from Iran to Russia. Iran and Russia, like North Korea and Russia, are creating a, an autocratic alliance that, affects Ukraine.
It affects European concerns about Russia in Ukraine. And it effectively means that Iran helps Russia threaten Europe, including the United Kingdom. When we look at Russian, launch facilities shooting Iranian missiles in our direction, we have to take a sharp look at Iran and the people who are willing to conduct robust operations against Iran right now, and that’s the Israelis.
So, unless we choose to impose some kind of structure that says, the Ukraine war is separate from the conflict between Israel and Iran and Iranian proxies. Unless we pretend that Russia and Iran are not cooperating, we have to understand that Israeli success against Iran is success. On behalf of Ukraine, against Russia.
Daniel J. Levy:
And one of this week’s other news items was the prospect of Israel unilaterally launching air strikes on Iran in the event that the Omani brokered talks with the US over nuclear facilities fail. What’s the UK’s current position on Israel’s, as you said, robust, action towards Iran and what would you expect to like the UK response to Israeli kinetic action against Iran being?
Dr Lynette Nusbacher:
We’ve seen that the British government has been ready in April of 2024 and again in April of 2025. So, both Conservative and Labour governments have been ready to allow British aircraft to join with American aircraft in operations against Iranian proxies and. I expect that as long as British operations can be seen to be, joint combined operations between British and American allies seeking to achieve stability in the Middle East, Britain will join in and will make contributions.
What I do not expect, British assets in the region to be used for is anything that could be perceived as British aircraft joining in, or assisting Israel in conducting operations against Iran. The British public is comfortable with British and American aircraft flying, as it were, side by side as they have done in the Middle East and as they have done on operations against Iranian proxies.
However, as the United States has started to push away from Israel, as Trump’s White House has started to create a bit of distance between its willingness to attack Iran and Israel’s interest in attacking Iran that will distance British support for anyone operating against Iran, that will distance that support from Israel. It’s a little bit confusing. Let me say that a little bit more clearly.
I would be absolutely floored if we saw British aircraft helping Israel do something against Iran. I would not be surprised if I saw, once again, British aircraft helping the United States operate against Iran or as Iranian proxies. And the difference there is that, as Donald Trump has emphasized, that he wants a deal with Iran and that he is no longer interested in menacing Iran as one of the ways to achieve a deal.
As Trump has made it clear, he’s not attacking Iran, as Trump has made it clear that the aircraft moved to Diego Garcia are not going to be used to attack Iran. It becomes vanishingly unlikely that, British assets will be used in any way to support anyone attacking Iran, because the only way Britain would do that is with its American allies.
Does that make sense, Daniel?
Daniel J. Levy:
Absolutely. Okay. And probably, a final question before we start wrapping up, going back to this week’s, low point of bilateral Anglo-Israeli relations, what would it take for us to bounce back and for those ties to be improved?
Dr Lynette Nusbacher:
The UK Israel Strategic Partnership has slid over the last year or so, and as Israel’s operations in Gaza have been seen more and more by the British public as a as a deliberately cruel set of actions, rather than as a set of actions designed to attack and destroy Hamas operational capability. And in particular, as we’ve seen Israel break a cease fire, which was unquestionably a disadvantageous cease fire to Israel.
We’ve seen UK Israel cooperation weaken. I’m going to pause for a fact because I want to emphasize something about the ceasefire.
In December of 2024, the incoming Trump administration pushed Benjamin Netanyahu into accepting a disadvantageous cease fire. We know it was a disadvantageous cease fire because Netanyahu had already refused it. But under pressure from not the Biden administration but the incoming Trump administration, Netanyahu accepted a disadvantageous cease fire.
And there was a lot of, a positive response around the world to seeing the cease fire. The Israeli cessation of operations in Gaza rewarded with the return of hostages and particular living hostages. However, when it became clear to the Israeli government that the cease fire hostages arrangement was not going to result in Hamas losing any capability, and in fact, Hamas, demonstrated its resilience as Hamas rebounded during the cease fire period, Israel had to resume operations if its aim was to destroy Hamas’s operational capability, which it clearly is.
As Israel broke its ceasefire with Hamas, the world, already queasy at the robust Israeli approach to operations in Gaza, started to see Israel as not only, a bit of a villain for, for, being as robust as it was in, in Gaza, but a villain for breaking a ceasefire and for prolonging a war that everyone thought was over.
And I’ll say that a little more concisely, when Israel agreed the Trump cease fire at the end of 2024, beginning of 2025, a lot of people thought the war in Gaza was over. And they breathed a sigh of relief. And as Israel resumed the war, a lot of people had their expectations dented. Peace was being replaced by war.
And the world forgot why Israel was at war in Gaza and the world forgot that Hamas was still holding Israeli hostages, both alive and dead. So, the world, including the UK, thought the war was over and it was still grinding on. This made it difficult, arguably impossible, for the British government to support the continuation of hostilities, particularly because constraining Hamas’s, logistics by holding back humanitarian aid, putting Hamas and the population of Gaza under pressure by restricting humanitarian aid and courting accusations of war crimes by holding back humanitarian aid made it politically difficult, perhaps politically impossible.
Britain could no longer support Israeli operations when Israeli operations looked to be unnecessary, unnecessarily cruel and nothing anybody wanted to be associated with. Does that answer the question?
Daniel J. Levy:
Yeah, it does. I think that’s, probably a good point to wrap up. But before we do, do you have anything else to add on subject?
Dr Lynette Nusbacher:
Yeah, I do. The United Kingdom benefits from an economic relationship with Israel. From, a lot of trade in services between two very service-oriented economies. The United Kingdom sells defence goods to Israel. And of course, both the United Kingdom and Israel participate in the American sponsored F-35 project, which delivers, to Israel and to Britain, some, some really leading-edge air combat capability, but far more important than defence cooperation and broader economic cooperation.
The UK and Israel have deep cooperation around intelligence and security and around cyber security. I don’t expect British and Israeli cooperation around security to weaken, but if the UK has got to chill its relationship with Israel over a humanitarian aid in Gaza, there will inevitably be a loss of trust and a loss of warmth to cooperation around intelligence and security, especially cyber security.
If the UK can’t depend on Israel, and if Israel can’t depend on the UK for intelligence and security cooperation, then both countries will lose out. There will be, damage to the UK if we can’t have a robust security cooperation with Israel. And one of the things that demonstrates that is recent cyber attacks on British retail interests. We can bet that British and Israeli cooperation has in recent weeks been focusing on preventing further cyber attacks on, British, industry and particularly sensitive British sectors.
And it will be a shame if, both Israeli decisions and British responses to Israeli decisions make the British economy more vulnerable to cyber attack.
Daniel J. Levy:
Dr Nusbacher, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr Lynette Nusbacher:
It’s a pleasure, Daniel.