Military Audit: John Lewis

Direct Defence Contracting & Procurement

No verified contracts, tenders, framework agreements, or memoranda of understanding between John Lewis (or the wider John Lewis Partnership/Waitrose) and the Israeli Ministry of Defense, IDF, Israel Prison Service, Israel Border Police, or other Israeli state security bodies were identified ¹². No SIBAT listings, defence-exhibition catalogue entries, or Israeli procurement-registry references naming John Lewis were identified ³. The only documented commercial partnership between John Lewis and an Israeli company is with Cimagine, an Israeli augmented-reality retail-visualisation startup, which supplied civilian in-store technology for John Lewis’s flagship store in 2015 ⁴⁵. No public evidence identified of any defence-related partnership, joint venture, or cooperation agreement involving John Lewis and an Israeli defence entity.

Dual-Use Products & Tactical Variants

John Lewis operates as a general department-store retailer across homeware, electronics, fashion, and toys, and no evidence was identified of it manufacturing, marketing, or distributing ruggedised, tactical, mil-spec, or defence-grade product variants ⁶. No public evidence identified. No export licence applications, end-user certificates, or export-control reviews connecting John Lewis products to Israeli defence or security end-users were identified ³¹. No public evidence identified.

Heavy Machinery, Construction & Infrastructure

John Lewis does not manufacture, sell, or supply heavy machinery, construction equipment, or engineering plant. The UK company implicated in NGO and Amnesty International investigations into demolition equipment used in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is JCB, an entirely separate corporate entity with no identified relationship to John Lewis Partnership ⁷. No public evidence identified of John Lewis equipment, vehicles, or machinery being used in settlement construction, demolitions, the separation barrier, or military installations. No construction or engineering contracts connected to checkpoints, detention facilities, military bases, the barrier, or settlement infrastructure were identified ⁷⁶.

Supply Chain Integration with Defence Primes

A targeted review of documented UK suppliers to Elbit Systems - Syensqo/Solvay, Incora, Permoid, Instro Precision, and PEI-Genesis, per Declassified UK’s investigation - did not surface John Lewis ⁸. No verified supply relationship of any kind (component, sub-system, raw material, or manufacturing service) between John Lewis and Elbit Systems, IAI, Rafael, or IMI/Elbit Land was identified ⁸³. No joint development, co-production, or technology-transfer arrangements between John Lewis and Israeli defence firms were identified. No public evidence identified.

Logistical Sustainment & Base Services

No verified service contracts - catering, transport, fuel, waste, facilities management, or telecoms - supplied by John Lewis to IDF bases, training facilities, detention centres, or security installations were identified ¹⁶. No evidence of service provision to installations in the West Bank, Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, or the Negev was identified. John Lewis’s identified shipping and freight footprint relates solely to ordinary international parcel delivery to Israeli civilian addresses via third-party carriers, together with historical UK-domestic vessel chartering for retail stock replenishment; no defence-logistics, military-cargo, or arms-shipment handling was identified. No public evidence identified.

Munitions, Weapons Systems & Strategic Platforms

No evidence identified of John Lewis acting as a manufacturer, prime contractor, or licensed producer of small arms, artillery, armoured vehicles, drones, naval vessels, or other lethal platforms ³¹. No evidence of munitions, ordnance, propellant, or warhead-component supply was identified. No evidence of any role in Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow, fighter-aircraft, main battle tank, warship, or ballistic-missile programmes was identified. No evidence of guidance electronics, fire-control, radar, propulsion, or warhead-casing supply was identified. No public evidence identified.

Export Licensing, Regulatory & Legal History

No government decisions to grant, deny, suspend, or revoke export licences for John Lewis products destined for Israeli military or security end-users were identified in any jurisdiction, and no arms-embargo or sanctions-compliance investigations or enforcement actions were identified ³¹. On 30 October 2024 the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) sent legal notices to eight UK supermarket chains - including Waitrose & Partners, a John Lewis Partnership subsidiary - citing Section 52 of the International Criminal Court Act 2001 and Sections 328–329 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, warning directors and executives of potential individual liability for selling settlement-origin goods and demanding clarification of sourcing and due-diligence practices within 14 days ⁹. ICJP followed up in December 2024 calling on the UK government to review supermarket complicity in the settlement trade ahead of the Christmas season, and issued a further notice specifically to Sainsbury’s in June 2025, with no confirmation that Waitrose was included in that later notice ¹⁰¹¹. No outcome or response from Waitrose & Partners to the October 2024 notice was identified in available reporting. Separately, in December 2025 ICJP contacted John Lewis directly, alongside Argos, Currys, and Ryman, regarding the continued sale of SodaStream products, alleging that Palestinian workers at SodaStream’s Israeli/settlement facilities face segregation from Israeli colleagues, discriminatory treatment, exploitative labour conditions, and denial of religious accommodations ¹². John Lewis responded that it “respectfully disagreed” that SodaStream sales violated consumer-protection or criminal law, stated it requires brands to comply with its responsible sourcing code of practice, said it was “the only business to respond” to ICJP’s inquiries, and said sourcing is kept “under constant review,” confirming it continued selling SodaStream as of the December 2025 article date ¹². No court proceedings or judicial reviews against John Lewis specific to a defence-supply relationship with Israel were identified; the ICJP notices concern consumer-protection and settlement-goods law rather than defence export law. No public evidence identified of judicial review specific to a defence-supply relationship.

Civil Society Scrutiny & Documented Investigations

The longest-running campaign concerns SodaStream: Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) UK targeted John Lewis from November 2013 over its sale of SodaStream products, whose main manufacturing plant was located in the Mishor Adumim industrial zone of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement in the West Bank ¹³¹⁴. Fortnightly protests were held outside John Lewis’s Oxford Street flagship store through 2014 ¹⁴¹⁵. John Lewis withdrew SodaStream from its shelves around July 2014; SodaStream attributed the move to a strategic refocus on other retail channels, while press and PSC reporting attributed it to declining sales and boycott pressure ¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸. John Lewis has since resumed selling SodaStream products online, and continued this relationship through at least December 2025 despite renewed ICJP legal pressure ¹⁹¹². A separate campaign concerned Ahava Dead Sea cosmetics: John Lewis discontinued Ahava products around 2008, describing the decision as “purely a commercial decision” rather than a boycott response, a characterisation disputed by BDS-aligned campaigners who claimed the withdrawal as a movement victory ²⁰²¹. A further campaign concerned toys: a 2017 petition by Edinburgh Action for Palestine alleged John Lewis sold Halilit-distributed toy brands, including Interstar, manufactured at a settlement facility in the Occupied Palestinian Territories ²²²³. John Lewis’s toy pages currently list Halilit-brand products, but no source identified in this research confirms the current manufacturing location of Interstar products or whether the settlement-manufacture claim remains accurate ²⁴²³. Wider civil-society pressure has also targeted John Lewis Partnership’s sibling brand, Waitrose, over its stocking of Israeli and settlement-grown produce such as dates, herbs, and fruit and vegetables, including in-store protests organised by PSC-affiliated groups such as Brighton Jordan Valley Solidarity and Tell the Truth Sheffield, with documented action in December 2023 ²⁵²⁶. One source reported that Waitrose stated it no longer sources Medjool dates from Israel, though this was not independently corroborated with a primary company statement ²⁷. No boycott or divestment campaign identified in this research is framed around John Lewis’s defence-sector activities specifically; all identified campaigns concern settlement-linked consumer and retail goods (SodaStream, Ahava, toys, produce) rather than military or dual-use defence supply, and no institutional pension-fund or sovereign-wealth-fund divestment decisions targeting John Lewis were identified. No public evidence identified of defence-sector-specific boycott or divestment campaigns or institutional divestment. Across the 2013–2025 period, John Lewis’s consistent public position has been to decline to make settlement-linked sourcing decisions on political or boycott grounds while stating it applies a general responsible sourcing code of practice and keeps sourcing “under constant review” ¹²¹⁵. General business-and-human-rights monitoring organisations track John Lewis Partnership within their company-tracking databases in connection with these campaigns ⁶.

End Notes