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FARNBOROUGH, ENGLAND — Israel has “fallen short” of Britain’s standards of conduct in Gaza and the West Bank, the U.K.’s new Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said Wednesday.

Speaking to journalists at the Farnborough International Airshow in one of his first engagements in the job, Streeting said that as a “friend and ally,” Israel should be held to the same standard Britain holds itself to.

“That is the standard that I think, I fear, they’ve fallen short of,” he added.

The defense secretary has previously said — in WhatsApp messages to former U.S. ambassador Peter Mandelson before Streeting took up his current job — that “Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes,” and is committing “rogue state behaviour” in the West Bank.

Asked about these messages Wednesday, Streeting refused to repeat them. But he said: “I’m not going to pretend I didn’t make those comments.”

His remarks highlight the continued ripple effects on the left of British politics over Israel’s protracted campaign in the Gaza Strip, which followed the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas. The new defense secretary nearly lost his parliamentary seat of Ilford North at the last general election after a large turnout among pro-Palestinian constituents, and has been projected to lose it by some pollsters.

Streeting also refused to say whether he believes Britain should continue to buy Israeli weapons as those are “not my decisions alone.”

“I’ve expressed very clearly my concerns about Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank,” he said, adding that he believes “very strongly in Israel’s right to defend itself, to defend its values, its freedom, and its democracy, just as we do every single day.”

Britain’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has tried to make a break with his predecessor, Keir Starmer, who was condemned by some in his own party for his staunch support for Israel in the immediate aftermath of October 7 – including a broadcast interview in which he appeared to say that Israel had the “right” to cut off water and energy to Gaza.

Burham said earlier this month — ahead of taking up the top job on Monday — that the governing Labour Party “didn’t get it right.”

“Labour’s initial response to the treatment of Gaza caused huge hurt. We got it wrong and I am sorry for that,” he wrote on social media.

Defense spending questions

Burnham appointed Streeting as defense secretary late on Monday, after weeks of turmoil in the Labour ranks over promises to increase defense spending.

Speaking Wednesday, Streeting refused to commit the government to spending 3 percent of GDP on defense by 2030, the stated preference of John Healey, Britain’s new chancellor, who quit as defense secretary just weeks ago amid the funding row.

“I’m trying not to be on the wrong side of the chancellor on day two in office,” Streeting said, adding it would not only be “limiting to my time in this post, but potentially ending of my time in this post” to “write the chancellor’s next budget and next spending review for him.”

He said Burnham asked him to take the job “because of my record as a modernizer and reformer” during his time as health secretary. “I think that’s what we need in MoD,” he said.

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Concerned by the lack of docks on the West Coast that can service large vessels such as aircraft carriers, the U.S. Navy is moving forward with plans to build a new dock at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.

The Navy recently published a Sources Sought notice for a massive, multi-award contract — worth up to $30 billion — for the multi-mission dry dock.

The dock is part of the Navy’s Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, which aims to modernize the service’s four long-neglected shipyards at Norfolk, Virginia, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Portsmouth, Maine, as well as the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility. The contract is for five years plus three one-year options.

“The Multi-Mission Dry Dock is a fully pressure-relieved dry dock capable of accommodating shipyard repair services for the newest Ford-class aircraft carrier, Nimitz-class carriers, and other surface and subsurface ships served by PSNS & IMF,” according to the Sources Sought notice.

The project was spurred by the need to service Ford-class carriers on the West Coast.

“The Navy does not currently have the capacity and capability to perform depot-level maintenance on a Gerald R. Ford-class carrier in the Pacific Northwest,” according to the Navy’s Multi-Mission Dry Dock website .

The capability to even service older carriers is limited at Puget Sound: “The only dry dock on the West Coast able to accommodate a current Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is Dry Dock 6 (DD6), which does not meet seismic resiliency standards and cannot fully accommodate Ford-class carriers,” the site reads.

The multiple-award construction contract, or MACC, includes several task orders that typically range between $2 billion and $6 billion each. However, there may be smaller task orders for early contractor involvement and alternative technical concepts.

“The focus of this MACC will be the construction of a new proposed Multi-Mission Dry Dock at PSNS & IMF, located at Naval Base Kitsap (NBK) Bremerton, Washington,” the Sources Sought notice said. Located within the existing Dry Dock 3 and Piers 6 and 7, the project includes “dry dock drainage, dewatering, and flooding systems; a caisson; roadways and rail networks; portal crane track; access and egress elements; mechanical, electrical, and communications systems; support buildings; and utility routing tunnels. The proposed project also includes demolition of facilities and utilities.”

The Navy expects the first task order to include dredging, as well as work on piers, buildings and utilities. The second task order will see demolition of Dry Dock 3 and construction of the multi-mission dry dock. Task order three will provide infrastructure, such as electrical substations, utility tunnels and building crane rails. Task order four will be for the dock caisson.

Puget Sound has been a fixture for the Navy for more than a century.

It began in 1891, when the Navy bought 190 acres for $10,000 (about $367,000 today) to create Naval Station Puget Sound. The station became a shipyard in 1900 and was the Navy’s only West Coast repair facility until 1941.

“Between 1917 and 1969, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard constructed a total of 85 ships, including the largest vessels on the West Coast,” the Navy said.