‘Deeply concerning’: British General’s Israeli weapons job criticised
Posted by Gerard on April 5, 2025, 1:34 pm
"The former head of Britain’s armed forces is providing advice to Israeli arms firms, sparking questions over his role in a country whose prime minister is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
General Sir Nick Carter was chief of the defence staff – Britain’s most senior military position – from 2018-21. Months before stepping down, he signed a military cooperation agreement with Israel.
That pact has never been published – despite freedom of information requests and questions in parliament – but it was hailed as a landmark moment in relations between the two militaries.
Carter had visited Israel earlier in his tenure, touring military bases and shaking hands with his opposite number, General Aviv Kohavi.
That experience of rubbing shoulders with the top of the IDF is likely to come in handy for his new job at Exigent Capital, a boutique financial services firm based in Jerusalem.
Carter is one of Exigent’s two “domain experts” in its “strategic advisory” wing, with his focus on “aerospace and defence”.
His role there is to “develop international growth strategies for our clients as well as identify and open doors to new business opportunities that accelerate growth”, according to the company’s website.
Or, as the Jerusalem Post put it, Carter provides “strategic consulting services to Israeli companies operating in the defense sector.” Doing business
Carter attended a military tech summit in Tel Aviv in December 2024 – before the ceasefire had been signed in Gaza – when he told a journalist: “Israel is very significant in the world of defense tech.”
Carter added: “We appreciate the extraordinary innovation that Israeli defense companies exhibit and sometimes adopt what we see in Israel. It’s impressive to see the innovation of Israeli companies”.
The British army has bought Israeli-made drones, rifle sights and air defence systems.
The General has studied Israel’s wars against its neighbours in 1967, 1973 and 1982, commenting that Western armies “had to view Israel as a significant and successful force in those conflicts, and we did indeed learn a lot”.
In 1982, Israel illegally invaded and occupied southern Lebanon, prompting Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government to implement an arms embargo. Yet Carter said: “We all benefited from the difficulties that Israel faced and the way it resolved them.”
More recently, he felt “privileged” to have signed the “successful” UK-Israel military deal in 2020, commenting: “It’s very important for both militaries to work together, share the best training, and understand together the complexity of the modern battlefield. This is a very good way to do business.”
General Carter: Caught in the revolving door?
However campaigners are criticising Carter’s business decisions. Dr Sara Husseini, director of the British Palestinian Committee, told Declassified: “That the UK’s former chief of the defence staff is now advising Israeli arms companies exemplifies the extent of the links between the British state and Israel’s arms industry.
“These revelations are deeply concerning, particularly at this moment in which Israel is recommencing its large-scale bombardment of Gaza, killing more than 400 Palestinians in the past two days.
“Rather than aligning with a state which is on trial for genocide and – as the Foreign Secretary acknowledged earlier this week – is in breach of international law, Keir Starmer’s government must now halt its military collaboration with Israel, including scrapping the agreement signed by Sir Nick Carter.”
Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said: “Serious questions arise from former defence officials working with arms companies in states that have a track record of serious violations of international law.”
Turning to Labour’s partial embargo on weapons exports to Israel, Doyle commented: “It also raises longer term questions about whether former officials should be allowed to work with arms companies in countries where there is a ban on arms exports because the government has already acknowledged a serious risk of human rights abuses.”
Arms trade expert Andrew Feinstein from Shadow World Investigations remarked: “This is an example of what used to be called the revolving door – or is now known as the open plan office – between the British state and arms companies. It raises the question of whose interests the most senior political and military figures are working in: their own material interests, or the interests of Britain?”
Under government rules supposed to prevent conflicts of interest, former Generals must inform Whitehall’s Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) of any job offers they receive for two years after leaving the military.
General Carter notified ACOBA of 12 jobs he had been offered since stepping down from the army in July 2022, although Exigent was not among them.
General Carter and Exigent did not respond to a request for comment on when they began working together. A LinkedIn post by the company shows they had started at least three months ago, when Exigent said: “We look forward to sharing his unparalleled expertise, insights and network with our clients.”
His other job offers encompassed unpaid roles at Harvard and Stanford universities, plus a trusteeship at the Royal United Services Institute think tank.
Paid positions included working part-time as a strategic advisor for Schroders bank, plus advisory roles at Helsing – a German AI defence start-up – and an insurance firm.
On top of this, Carter spends 30 days per year “as a thought partner for Tony Blair in his role as Executive Chairman” at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
And he is chairman of Equilibrium Gulf Limited, which advises the crown prince of Bahrain on the autocratic country’s notoriously brutal interior ministry.
While he claims no military experience is required for the Bahrain role, previous Equilibrium directors include another former defence chief, General David Richards, and MI6’s one-time Middle East controller Geoffrey Tantum.
Lord Pickles, who oversees ACOBA, has acknowledged there are weaknesses in the system supposed to regulate Whitehall’s ‘revolving door’ between government positions and corporate careers.
on April 5, 2025, 1:34 pm