EDITOR: The trend is now setting, and gaining pace!
A number of international moves to limit dealing with Israel is signaling the growing disenchantment with Israel, and a more robust attitude towards its illegal occupation and its iniquities. More action is taken daily against it, not just by political organisations on the left, but now also on behalf of governments which are on the whole supportive of Israel. This is likely to continue and deepen, as Israeli atrocities worsen.
U.K. lawmakers call to review arms export to Israel: Haaretz
A group of British lawmakers are expected to call Tuesday for the reevaluation of arms deals with Israel after a recently published report claimed that British weapons were “almost certainly” used in Operation Cast Lead in December 2008, The Guardian reported.
“It is regrettable that arms exports to Israel were almost certainly used in Operation Cast Lead,” the U.K. daily The Guardian quoted the Commons committee on strategic export controls report.
“This is in direct contravention to the U.K. government’s policy that U.K. arms exports to Israel should not be used in the occupied territories,” the report said.
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In April 2009 Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that the U.K. would review all its weapons exports to Israel, in the wake of the Israel Defense Forces’ recent offensive on the Gaza Strip.
According to the report, U.K. arms deals with Israel in 2008 totaled at over £27.5 million, and over £4 million worth of government exporting licenses, the Guardian reported.
The equipment the U.K. sold to Israel which probably included components in cockpit displays in United States F-16 combat aircrafts and other parts installed in the U.S. Apache helicopters purchased by Israel and used during the Gaza offensive, the report concluded.
Miliband told the British Parliament shortly after the war in Gaza that all export licenses would be reviewed in light of the war in Gaza, which ended in mid-January.
MPs call for review of arms exports after Israeli assault on Gaza: The Guardian
A cross-party group of MPs will call today for a review of the way arms sales are approved after the government admitted British equipment was “almost certainly” used in the assault on Gaza last year.
“It is regrettable that arms exports to Israel were almost certainly used in Operation Cast Lead [the attack on Gaza],” the Commons committee on strategic export controls says in a report published. “This is in direct contravention to the UK government’s policy that UK arms exports to Israel should not be used in the occupied territories.”
The MPs say they welcome the government’s subsequent decision to revoke five export licences for equipment destined for the Israeli navy but “broader lessons” must be learned from a review to ensure British arms exports to Israel are not used in the occupied territories in future.
After the attack on Gaza, David Miliband, the foreign secretary, told the Commons that all future applications for arms-related exports to Israel “will be assessed taking into account the recent conflict”. He said Israeli equipment used in the attack on Gaza “almost certainly” contained British-supplied components included in cockpit displays in US F-16 combat aircraft sold to Israel, and components for the fire control and radar systems, navigation equipment and engine assemblies for US Apache helicopters.
The equipment also included armoured personnel carriers adapted from Centurion tanks sold to Israel in the late 1950s and components for the guns and radar in Israeli Sa’ar-class corvettes which took part in the operation.
Miliband said the government was looking into all existing licences to see whether any of them needed to be reconsidered. He added that he believed British export controls were amongst the strongest and most effective in the world.
Government-approved arms exports to Israel were worth more than £27.5m in 2008, according to the the report. Government departments approved nearly £4m worth of export licences for weapons and equipment with dual military and civil uses in the nine months after the Gaza attack, according to official statistics.
Though this suggests a significant drop, the figures show Britain was continuing to sell Israel a wide range of military equipment, including small-arms ammunition and parts for sniper rifles.
Most of the equipment was components for large items, including parts for ground-based radar, military aircraft engines, military aircraft navigation equipment, military communications and unmanned drones.
Among approved exports were remote ground-sensor systems, electronic warfare equipment “components for sniper rifles”, “small arms ammunition” and “test equipment for recognition/identification equipment”.
The report also reveals that the government decided to revoke a number of licences for arms sales to Sri Lanka. It says it regrets British arms were sold to Sri Lanka during ceasefire periods in the conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels.
Amnesty International called on the government to act swiftly to close loopholes allowing “brass-plate” companies registered in the UK to trade arms to countries where human rights violations were committed.
It backed the committee’s call for a robust international arms trade treaty. Amnesty International’s arms programme director, Oliver Sprague, said: “World leaders and campaigners have worked far too hard on the treaty for it to become a worthless piece of paper that will do little to protect people from armed violence.”
Swedish pension fund bans investment in Israeli company on ethical grounds: Haaretz
The biggest Swedish pension fund has barred Israeli defense electronics company Elbit Systems from its investment portfolios on ethical grounds, Israel Radio reported Monday.
Following the lead of Norway’s state oil fund, the Första AP-Fonden pension fund said it had banned investment in Elbit because the Israeli company had built and is operating a surveillance system for the much debated West Bank separation barrier.
Critics of the controversial barrier argue that it is an illegal attempt to annex Palestinian land under the guise of security and that it severely restricts Palestinians who live nearby, particularly their ability to travel freely within the West Bank and to access work in Israel. Proponents, however, argue that the barrier has greatly reduced the incidence of suicide bombers coming from the West Bank and carrying out terror attacks within Israel.
According to the Swedish website the Swedish Wire, the pension fund said in a statement that “the Ethical Council recommended that Elbit Systems Ltd. should be excluded from each portfolio because it deems that the company can be linked to violations of fundamental conventions and norms.”
In its annual report, the ethical council wrote that “the Council has noted that both the European Union and the Swedish government consider the part of the separation barrier being built on West Bank to be illegal under international law. This position is also supported by the advisory opinion from 2004 by the International Court of Justice regarding the separation barrier.”
Israel has so far completed 413 kilometers (256 miles) of the planned 709-kilometer (435-mile) barrier, according to UN figures.
The Swedish fund, which only had small investments in Elbit according to its ethics council chairwoman Annika Andersson, said that Grupo Ferrovial, PetroChina, Thales and Yahoo had successfully addressed its concerns about ethics violations.
Last September, Norway’s state pension fund, one of the world’s biggest investors, also banned Elbit from its portfolio, prompting the Israeli Foreign Ministry to summon Norway’s ambassador in protest at the move.