> You don't turn down a relationship with a country with Israel's military, technical and intelligence capabilities, and worth $5bn in bilateral trade

Well, that's certainly one angle.

The other angle is, let's face it, Israel is good at playing the Jewish card and portraying that if you're not pro-Israel you must be some sort of antisemite.

There are all sorts of political ties along those lines, e.g. "Conservative Friends of Israel"[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Friends_of_Israel

UK bilateral trade with Russia was ~$17 billion in 2021 (i assume that's imports plus exports right?).

Russia was a very close friend twenty years ago, Iraq was a very close ally in the 1980s. I'm sure Israel realises how quickly the west can turn on friends and allies when it suits us and that this is why they spend tens of millions a year wooing US and UK politicians.

Russia became a pariah over night and the moment it becomes politically convenient to diplomatically recognise Israel as an apartheid state the trade won't count for anything (not least because most of it is the direct consequence of billions in annual US subsidies)

Russia's been a pain in the arse continuously. 20 years ago they were up to their eyeballs in the Iranian nuclear programme, carpet bombing Chechnya, blowing up their own apartment blocks and blaming it on terrorists, destabilising Georgia and goodness knows what else. That's all just from memory. But they have a lot of oil and gas so we let it all slide. More fool us.

You are aware that the Israely government does similar things, right?

Most European governments look at the simultaneous invasion of Israel by three Arab states in 1948, and statements made about the aims of that invasion, and think "what would we be prepared to do to defend against such determined, implacable hostility?". They look at what Israel does to defend itself and think, yeah, pretty much we'd do that.

They look at Israel and see a democratic, technologically advanced state with a liberal economy much like their own. They look at the repressive, autocratic extraction economies in the Arab world and recoil in horror.

I'm not making any judgement on this, or whether they're right or wrong, but that's just how many Europeans see the situation.

I mean wow, they really don't.

And some other Europeans see the Israeli government as human rights abusers and boycott them.

And some other Europeans see human rights abusers and boycott them.

Yup, so does the US and the UK.

The sad reality is that we've not really had truly independent foreign policy since WW2. The US military never left our soil, and we've been in lock step with Washington on everything serious since then.

We're a vassal state, there's no Brexit on the special relationship.

We did with Europe and the trade is worth way more than $5bn

And we're allies with the EU to this day. What's your point?

We threw away billions in trade with the EU over not really that much, why would not throw away a far smaller sum when it comes to another country that was spying on us?

How much the UK and EU are allies remains to be seen too