UK - Arms Sales To Israel Breach Guidelines

[Dover]

Arms sales to Israel breach guidelines

Government turning blind eye to human rights abuses

Richard Norton-Taylor
Wednesday November 5, 2003
The Guardian

Large quantities of British arms and internal security equipment are being sold to Israel despite the government's public criticism of the country's human rights record and growing violence there, the Guardian can reveal.
Export licences for weapons are being cleared even though Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, has admitted that Israel has breached assurances that British equipment would not be used in the occupied territories. Exports approved by the government this year cover categories including leg-irons, electric shock belts and chemical and biological agents such as tear gas. They also include categories covering mortars, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons, military explosives, and infrared and radar sensors.

The hitherto undisclosed arms sales are revealed in a letter from Nigel Griffiths, the minister for export controls at the Department of Trade and Industry, to Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman.

The Foreign Office says in its annual human rights report that it is "deeply concerned at the impact that the continuing Israeli occupation and the associated Israeli military operations have had on the lives of ordinary Palestinians".

It says "both Israel and the Palestinian terrorist groups have shown a worrying disregard for human rights"...>> MORE

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1077660,00.html

[truthspeaker]

1. Tony Blair's response:

"The Americans do it, and I do everything they do now. And if you complain I'll have you dumped in the woods with slit wrists."

OK, he hasn't really said that, but that was his justification for the Iraq war and he's still in office, so why not?