The government has announced that owing to the war in Gaza, students from the Israeli Defence Forces will no longer be welcome at the UK’s Royal College of Defence Studies in London. Those who are critical of Israel will welcome this display as robust signalling. I would argue that even they, and all those who desire long-term resolution of the region’s more intractable problems, should think long before supporting it. It is more likely that the most serious damage will be done to us.

The RCDS is one the UK’s soft power jewels. I attended as a student in 2008 (one remains a member for life) and had it under command a decade later when ‘Director General UK Defence Academy’. There was a time where a wing of the UK military, over-focussed on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was a little dis

See Full Page