As Israel continues its devastating assault on Gaza—leveling entire neighborhoods, starving civilians, and facing accusations of genocide—a quiet rebellion is unfolding within the British state.
More than 300 Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) staff have broken ranks, challenging UK support for what leading human rights groups now unequivocally describe as Israeli apartheid. At the center of this moral reckoning is Simon Walters, His Majesty’s Ambassador to Israel—the man tasked with executing British diplomacy in a context increasingly viewed as a humanitarian catastrophe.
A Diplomat for a Rogue State
Since his appointment in August 2023, Simon Walters has functioned as the face of UK diplomacy in Israel, tasked with sustaining strategic, economic, and military cooperation. That includes defense collaboration, arms oversight, and public-facing support for Israeli institutions. In the process, he has helped legitimize and normalize a state widely accused of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide.
Walters has offered cautious warnings. In March 2025, he publicly stated that Israel’s renewed ground assault on Gaza would not bring back hostages or defeat Hamas, but instead would cause “more death: of hostages, of Palestinian civilians, of IDF soldiers.” He’s acknowledged “risks” of UK complicity in war crimes and said British officials are monitoring Israel’s adherence to international law.
But these are not positions of resistance—they are the language of crisis management. Walters has not condemned the siege, the indiscriminate bombardments, or the systematic starvation of 2.3 million Palestinians. He has not called for sanctions or a break in diplomatic ties. He continues to represent a government deeply embedded in the maintenance of Israel’s apartheid regime.
The Foreign Office Revolts
On May 16, 2025, more than 300 FCDO staff—stationed across British embassies around the globe—issued a powerful internal letter accusing the UK government of complicity in Israel’s war crimes. The letter, revealed by Novara Media and verified by The Guardian, condemned:
- UK arms exports used in Israeli offensives,
- The killing of 15 humanitarian workers in March,
- Israel’s weaponization of starvation, and
- The Israeli government’s open plans for ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
The diplomats called for a suspension of arms sales, publication of legal advice to ministers, and UK support for international accountability at the ICC and ICJ. They demanded that the Foreign Office stop facilitating diplomatic cover for genocide.
Rather than respond to these charges, the FCDO’s top brass—Oliver Robbins and Nick Dyer—told staff to resign if they felt uncomfortable. “Your ultimate recourse is to resign from the civil service,” they wrote. The substance of the staff’s warnings was never addressed.
This act of bureaucratic repression illustrates that the problem is not only one of policy—but one of systemic rot. The UK’s diplomatic corps is being forced to prop up an apartheid regime against the better judgment, and increasingly, the consciences, of its own staff.
A Foreign Office Built on Apartheid
Simon Walters represents the face of this institutional complicity. He works for a Foreign Office that:
- Continues to export weapons and aircraft parts that Israel can recieve via the F-35 program,
- Refuses to publish legal advice on whether those exports breach humanitarian law,
- Defends diplomatic engagement with Israeli ministers who publicly advocate ethnic cleansing,
- And contradicts its own legal obligations by pre-emptively denying that genocide is occurring—while insisting only courts can decide that.
Even as RAF surveillance planes circle over Gaza, even as children starve in refugee camps, and even as Israeli ministers openly plan for the “complete destruction” of Gaza, Walters is still at his post. He is, in effect, the human embodiment of UK complicity.
And the excuses are crumbling. The UK’s claim that it must support the F-35 program or risk NATO integrity is not a defense—it is an admission that geostrategic loyalty now takes priority over the Geneva Conventions.
Zionism, Diplomacy, and Denial
Zionism, in theory, was a nationalist project. In practice, it required the mass dispossession of Palestinians, the destruction of their villages, and a system of ethnic supremacy. That is the state Simon Walters helps to sustain.
Whether or not he personally identifies as a Zionist is irrelevant. By legitimizing and defending Israel diplomatically, while doing nothing to oppose its apartheid and genocidal practices, Simon Walters is materially supporting Zionism. He is also upholding a regime that human rights law now defines as a criminal enterprise.
Maintaining “good relations” with Israel in 2025 is not a diplomatic obligation—it is an act of political alignment with apartheid and genocide. And no amount of cautious language or procedural reviews can obscure that fact.
A Reckoning is Coming
The revolt inside the Foreign Office is not a sideshow. It is a crack in the architecture of British state complicity. For decades, UK policy has straddled the line between rhetorical concern and material support for Israeli crimes. That balance is no longer tenable.
Simon Walters, like his superiors in Whitehall, has a choice: continue propping up a collapsing moral order—or resign in protest and tell the truth.
He has chosen the former.
But history—and perhaps soon, international law—will remember him as a diplomat not of peace, but of apartheid.
